


Richard The First

by JaeNunyah



Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 34,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23000914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaeNunyah/pseuds/JaeNunyah
Summary: Rick declares his love for Dave. From such sweet spring shall flow Endless River of sticky sap.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	1. Act I, Scene 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hadn't intended to share this one here, but recent response to "Daisy Chains And Laughs" gave me confidence to offer up supremely sappy Thing to a wider audience than Rockfic.

"Rick, do you have a crush on me?"

Dave has been mulling how to address the longing, hungry stares whenever Rick thinks he's not looking, and the strange, tense shyness displayed when he is...like right now, while the two are alone in the house, sitting together on the sofa.

"A crush?" Rick's heart begins to race, but he keeps his voice neutral. "That's ridiculous. We're grown men." He struggles to steel his resolve, determined that if Dave can ask so directly he deserves an equally forthright answer. "I'm in love with you."

There it is. No "I think..." or "...falling..." to mitigate Rick's simple sentiment.

Dave is surprised, but not exactly shocked, responding only "Why?"

Emboldened that Dave has neither laughed nor left, Rick's next words tumble out in a rush. "You're so brave and brilliant and beautiful, I feel like anything's possible when we're together..." he blushes at his uncharacteristic exuberance, ducking his head to look away before adding quietly "...even things that aren't."

"Like what?" Dave asks, reaching out a hesitant hand to lightly lay calloused fingers atop Rick's smooth ones. "What impossible things, Rick?"

Rick is unable to meet Dave's inquiring expression, eyes resting instead upon the guitarist's sensually shaped mouth as he confesses "Impossibilities like kissing you." He's sure Dave will pull away at that, but when he doesn't Rick dares a question of his own. "Have you ever kissed a man, Dave?"

"I haven't." Dave declares "Except..." his brain blooms with images of a sunny summer meadow...a daisy chain...He shakes his head briskly to clear it. NO, that DIDN'T happen.

"Except...?" Rick prompts, observing clouds crossing Dave's lovely visage and wondering what they mean.

"Except in a dream." Dave decides.

"Was it me?" Rick asks playfully, pulse pounding as Dave leans in closer.

"It is now." Dave tells him before closing his eyes and slipping those gorgeously lush lips against his own. Rick feels as though HE's the one in a dream, and he's unable to shut his own eyes for fear that Dave might disappear.

Rick entwines slender, tapered fingers with beloved bandmate's roughly blunt ones, burning to bury his other hand in Dave's luscious locks and pull their faces closer, but terrified any outreach might shatter the fragile magic allowing what contact he's already deliriously delighted to be experiencing.

A stirring, sustained major chord warbles in his ears, an unknown key never coaxed from any ivories, resonating and swelling until he's sure Dave must be hearing it, too. Rick's limbs grow heavy as his head grows light, and he's unsure if he sinks into the sofa or floats above it while the world slides away.

Dave's eyes fly open to behold Rick's rolled back in his head. His friend hasn't exhaled since the kiss began and now sways precariously. Dave draws away his lips to gently urge "Breathe.", keeping hold of Rick's hand and wrapping other arm around his shoulders to pull him forward before he can fall back.

Dave has been with women who had contrived a swoon just to turn up the my-hero sparkle when he'd caught them, so he recognizes this as the genuine article when Rick slumps gracelessly against his chest with a pent-up sigh. His own head swims with an incredibly conflicting blend of power and humility to realize Rick wants him so badly as to nearly faint from no more than clasped hand and chaste kiss. What had he done to earn such devotion, and what can he do about it?

Rick's face nestles beneath Dave's chin, nuzzling lightly stubbled flesh faintly fragrant of tobacco smoke. How could Dave ever take him seriously after such a weak, desperate display? This may well be his last chance to bask in blissful closeness.

"I'm sorry." He murmurs, mortified. "It's just been so long..."

Position's putting painful torque on Dave's wrist but he doesn't want to let go of Rick's hand, so he leans back until he's lying down, pulling Rick with him so they're stretched out side-by-side, still-folded fingers between their chests and faces only inches apart.

Dave knows this may upset the sensitive artist, but he needs his answer. "So, you've really never even kissed anybody else since...Syd?"

Rick hadn't thought Dave knew, but he's able to answer honestly. "Nobody I love...until now."

"You still haven't." Dave tenderly teases. "I kissed YOU." He squeezes Rick's hand as he once more closes his eyes, whispering "If you love me, show me."

Unheld hands pinned beneath them, Rick reluctantly releases their clasp to free one with which he's no longer able to resist reaching up to caress Dave's hair as he's so often dreamed of doing, at long last learning sensation of silken strands. Dave's newly-free hand drifts downward to rest upon the small of Rick's back as their mouths meltingly merge.

Rick cannot help remembering how things had been with Syd. They hadn't ever really discussed what had kept happening between them, and although Rick had never known what to expect from each new interlude with his secret lover (on some occasions Syd had seemed a greedy child, others a brutish beast), the one constant had been Rick's accommodating acquiescence, always allowing Syd to dictate when, where and what they would play together. He himself had often spoken of "love", but Syd rarely did.

With a sudden start that breaks the kiss, Rick berates himself for terrible transgression...How horrid he is to have finally found favor from beautiful, blue-eyed guitar god only to dwell upon the lingering taste of memory. Dave deserves better. 

Rick's eyes prickle with unshed tears, which Dave discerns as he opens his own, correctly detecting the cause. "I miss him sometimes, too." Dave quietly assures. "I understand." He can't, not really, but it seems right to say.

"He told you about...us?" Rick had often fretted Syd might capriciously declare their affair, but at least it was Dave...considerate, compassionate, dear, decent, discreet Dave...who knew, and not...

"Roger did." Dave admits, and Rick almost faints again.

He cringes in anticipation of caustic, calculating cruelty, but ongoing ignorance would be worse... "What did He say?"

Dave answers gravely. "He stopped me from knocking on your door one day when...I guess...Syd was in there with you. Told me to leave you two alone and not to say anything, that you'd tell us when you were ready." He touches lips briefly to Rick's before continuing softly "But you never did." He won't ask why, but has to know... "Do you want THIS to be a secret, too?"

Rick isn't sure how to answer that, and feels an unbidden pang of affection for their baleful bane. Of course Roger knew...amazing powers of observation...How could Rick have ever thought to have pulled anything over on Him? He could've used that information to no end of evil, but He hadn't. Kept it to Himself, never levering it into mocking, extorting or wanting to watch what Rick and Syd had shared.

"Do YOU want it to be?" Rick asks diffidently.

"Maybe for now." Dave allows. He's aware it's-not-you-it's-me is a terrible cliche, so he regards Rick as sincerely as possible, attempting to convey that the old saw truly IS the case here. "Look, Rick..." Dave grapples with words that need saying. "I don't know...yet...if I'm even going to like it, or if you will, either. I might not be any good." He smiles humbly, encouraged by Rick's ardent gaze. "But I'd like to try, and I've never wanted to with any man before you."

Awed at Dave's declaration, Rick impulsively kisses him with fevered fervor before drawing back, radiating reverent gratitude. "That's more than I could ever ask."

Dave deflects with soft scold. "Don't say that." He pulls Rick tightly against him. "Whatever this is, or might be, it can't work if you're afraid to ask. In fact..." he suggests, kindly but firmly "I want you to start right now. Tell me something YOU want, and I'll do it...if I can."

Rick would do anything Dave desires, but it's disconcerting to be commanded to say what HE wants. There is one thing though...

"I want..." he hesitates, praying it won't sound foolish. "...just when we're alone..." he takes a deep breath and releases it with a slight shiver "...you to call me Richard."

Dave slides his hand up to cup the back of Rick's neck and avows. "I would love to." He bestows another kiss then another smile. "Good King Richard."

Rick adores the sound of that, but demurs "I'm no king."

Dave hopes to make him feel like one as he proudly proclaims. "King of my heart. Richard The First."


	2. Act I, Scene 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Romantic interlude on a piano bench.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helps to know Herman's Hermits hit "There's A Kind Of Hush".

What's that he's playing? Dave drifts closer to the music room where Rick's been fooling around on the piano, as he often does when Roger's out, trilling lighthearted songs without worry they'll be scorned as "sappy shit".

[Roger's rather bad at sharing...anything...and He can be a real bear about that particular piano, which IS technically His.]

Dave hums along, beginning to sing as he recognizes Herman's Hermits' "There's A Kind Of Hush".

Rick looks up to behold beautiful beloved braced against the doorway, gazing in at him, soulfully singing "...just the two of us, and nobody else in sight..."

Rick's fingers tremble upon the keys, slightly stuttering song, but Dave's voice remains strong and clear as he moves smoothly toward the piano.

"...closer now and you will see what I mean..." Stepping lightly behind Rick to softly sweep gentle fingers from shoulder to shoulder "...it isn't a dream..."

Rick isn't sure about that, as this is much like one he's had before. He longs to stop playing and offer better uses for his hands, but burns to hear Dave sing the next lyrics as he leans in "...the only sound that you will hear, is when I whisper in your ear..."

[Will he say it?]

"I love you...forever and ever..." Dave sits down on the padded bench beside Rick facing the opposite direction with his back to the keyboard. Feeling the quaver he's unable to keep out of the music coursing through his whole body, Rick can no longer concentrate enough to remember the notes, and his fingers fall still.

"I come at your command, Good King Richard." Dave smiles, gladdened at the glowing gleam those words evoke, reaching out to lightly caress Rick's ecstatic face. "Summoned to your side by a love song. What would you have of me?"

Rick is unable to respond in words, slowly inclining head and hands toward the voluptuous vision that has materialized so achingly near. Tenderheart though he is, Rick's not a complete sap. He knows this over-the-top romanticism Dave's displaying may well be mockery but, as the guitarist's arms enfold him in a tender embrace, he finds he doesn't care. He'd be the butt of a hundred jokes for the bliss of a single kiss, and deem it a fair exchange.

Dave isn't sure what, exactly, he wants from this diverting new game himself, but he'd undertaken to play it with the goal of raising Rick's...morale...and can tell from starry eyes sparkling into his own he's certainly accomplishing that.

Hoping to invite initiative, he asks "Will you kiss me, Richard?"

Rick's "Yes!" is an eager, impassioned gasp as Dave closes eyes in anticipation, but the contact that finally follows is tentative and tremulous, the merest pressure upon his awaiting lips.

Wishing he knew what Rick's so afraid of...he's the one with experience at this, after all...Dave determines to allow his friend all the time he needs without interrogation, criticism or escalation from him. This shall be Rick's show, and Dave will happily harmonize.

Rick consciously regulates respiration, trying not to allow the headrush to overwhelm him as it had last time. Recalling how Dave had said he wasn't sure he'd like it has Rick tied in anxious knots. He wants more...so much more...but fears any wrong move might turn Dave off and subsequently away.

Still, though, it was Dave who'd come to him...Dave who'd asked (so sweetly) to be kissed. Now Rick's worry shifts to consider that too little could be almost as bad as too much. He dares to deepen the kiss and tighten his hold, pulling Dave closer against him, one hand slipping up to twine into the long, lovely locks he's so often imagined spread upon his pillow or sweeping across his bare flesh...mmmm. He struggles to banish fantasy from this already glorious reality.

Dave discerns Rick's mouth opening against his own parted lips, and awaits the moist probe of tongue...but it doesn't come. He debates offering Rick a taste of his, but decides to wait, not wanting the poor fellow to swoon off the bench. He's finding Rick's hesitance heartrendingly endearing.

At last the faint flicker of Rick's tongue delicately quests along the curve of Dave's full lower lip, and he notes that Rick has stopped breathing, just as he had during their first kiss. Dave isn't sure if he feels pity or envy. What must it be like to know desire so deep that it can steal your very breath?

Dave realizes he'll have to be considerably careful with Rick's affections. This might only be an ego-boosting curiosity...a charitable mission...to him, but it's clearly capital-ell Love in the mind and heart of his besotted bandmate, and even if Dave can't quite understand that, he resolves to respect it.

A heated sigh wafts across Dave's lips as Rick's tongue slips warmly between them, and Dave's so relieved at Rick's renewed (albeit ragged) respiration he offers encouragement in the form of a long, low moan as he meets Rick's exploring tongue with his own, hoping the ensuing vibration will thrill.

Dave's contrived noise of pleasure elicits genuine one from Rick, higher-pitched ululation that thrums through their melded mouths. Rick's spirits and confidence soar at the sound and sensation of Dave's wordless praise, spurring him to try earning more. Capturing Dave's tongue with his lips, he applies gentle suction to draw it deeper into his own mouth, sliding slightly back and forth along slippery length, flicking tip of his across underside of Dave's.

Dave's throaty growl is purely reactive, nearly shocked at Rick's slick trick. Women who'd pulled such a maneuver on him knew damn well what connotations it conjures, and he can't help but wonder if Rick knows how to do...THAT. He opts to respond as he had when offered this technique before. Firm hand slides up along Rick's spine to take him by the hair, tilting back his head without breaking the kiss. Dave presses lips tightly against Rick's, slowly draws away his tongue only to plunge it back into the hot cavern of Rick's mouth with a deliberately evocative thrust.

Deliriously yielding beneath Dave's passionate penetration, Rick arches ardently in his embrace only to have magnificent, magical moment suddenly, savagely shattered by the sound of motors (many motors) pulling up then shutting off, giving way to voices (many voices) outside the house. 

Whoever's arrived has brought along an entourage.

Rick jerks abruptly away, tearing himself from Dave's lips and arms with an inarticulate cry of frustrated dismay.

"Is it still a secret?" Dave quietly inquires.

Although Rick wonders what would happen if it weren't, all he can manage is a shaky nod.

"As you wish, Richard." Dave stands up to smile down at him, singing a final line. "...all over the world people just like us are falling in love..."

"Hush..." Rick pleads as chatterclatter of company triptraps toward their truncated tryst.

Dave sings it again, barely above a whisper.

"...falling in love..."


	3. Act I, Scene 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick's medieval fantasy...

"I come at thy command, Good King Richard." Sir David removes his helmet, long locks spilling over the roundels of his armor as he sinks to one knee before the throne, turning limpid, azure eyes up to behold His Grace. "What wouldst thou have of me?"

"Arise, noble Sir..." Richard allows "...and kiss me."

His most loyal knight gladly obeys, and as Sir David receives the king's lips upon his own, Richard lays a palm against his breastplate, desiring to feel the heart that lies beneath beating under his hand. He breaks their kiss to snap imperious fingers at Sir David's mute bastard squire, deigning to use the lowly servant's name although he cares not to look upon his rather ugly face.

"Waters, divest my champion of his armor."

Sir David continues to regard his liege with reverent, loving gaze as the command is carried out, no sound but the clink and clatter of steel on steel until he stands before the king clad only in linen doublet, soft woolen trousers and tall riding boots.

"Begone, squire." Richard decrees, and Waters obsequiously bows out backward, eyes downcast in servile humility.

Richard descends from his throne to take David in impassioned embrace, welcoming winsome warrior with warm press of flesh.

"I have burned for return to thy sight and thy side, Sire." David declares, devotion evident in eager expression "Although it grieves me to confess my lute was lost and I cannot serve thee with a song."

Richard tenderly kisses him with a benevolent smile. "It is another skill I seek from thy lovely lips and fine fingers this day, dearest David."

He gently grasps one of Sir David's hands in his own, drawing it downward to indicate intention, heart afire at his faithful knight's ardent assent.

"It would be mine honor to wield the king's own sword, Your Grace."

"Thine honor is my pleasure to bestow." Richard leads him back to the throne, retaking his seat.

Opening the rich, regal robes of velvet and ermine, King Richard bares himself before his leal lover and commands only. "As you love me, serve me."

Sir David speaks no more, offering a single, shining smile before bowing his head to accept the quest his king has set forth.

Alone and ablaze in the grip of imaginative, incendiary idolatry, Rick quietly gasps his beloved's name once, then again, shuddering spasms sweeping solitary, fevered flesh. As his hand falls away, he raises it to his mouth, slipping tongue between two slightly spread fingers, wishing with all his heart the taste were transferred instead from lover's luscious lips.

"I love you." he whispers to his lonely room, and vestige of vision voices Dave's endearing echo.


	4. Act I, Scene 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave sorts out his feelings...

Bird's bouncy, buxom and bold...usually just Dave's type, but ever since she'd literally cornered him with his back at the juncture of two walls and his front the object of her abundantly amorous advances, he's been flashing back to thoughts and images of the tender interlude he'd shared earlier with Rick. The woman's seduction's somewhat stirring, but her brazen manner serves as striking contrast to the intoxicating headswim aroused by Rick's gentle hesitance.

Sticky sensation of her lipstick and overactive swirl of her tongue have him longingly recalling Rick's clean, sweet delicacy, wondering what might have unfolded had they not been interrupted. He doesn't even know her name, and is pretty sure all she knows about HIM is that he's rich, famous and handsome.

Rick possesses those triple traits himself, so although Dave's not sure exactly what his tenderhearted friend wants from him, he knows it's NOT a cheap thrill, a boast-worthy conquest or a staked claim. He wonders which (combination) of such shallow intentions has her currently moaning into his mouth.

It can't be anything he's doing, since his heart's not in this at all (although he allows that fact might not be evident, considering he does have his tongue between her lips and his hands on her bum). It's clearly not his heart she's after, as she demonstrates by reaching down to squeeze him through his jeans, disengaging moist, mobile mouth from his to flash a saucy smile around an overt inquiry.

"Wanna take me to bed?"

"No." Dave replies simply, wondering what his answer might be if Rick were to pose the same question.

Undaunted, she suggestively licks her lips before offering "So, just right here, then?", continuing to fondle him as she sinks to her knees.

Dave considers another flat refusal, but generously gives an honest excuse. "I'd be thinking about somebody else."

She tips him a cheeky wink, pulling down his zipper then slipping nimble fingers along his length to draw him out. "That's okay." she grins "I don't care whose name you scream."

Dave nods assent. He warned her, and supposes he doesn't mind if she doesn't. He usually likes to watch such treatment take place, but not this time...he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall, wondering again, as he had at the piano, if this particular skill is in Rick's repertoire.

Dave's been propositioned by men before, and has always been rather proud of his broad-minded ability to refuse politely, not making the aggressive panic of it that some blokes do. ["Say no like you would to a really ugly woman. Don't be rude, but don't offer any hope, either."]

He can admit to fleeting, occasional curiosity, but what's begun with Rick isn't about THAT. He'd tried to tell himself his motives were altruistic and charitable, sparing Rick the pain and shame of having to work with somebody who'd rebuffed his love, but the very fact that he's dreaming about Rick during...this...must mean there's more to it.

Regarding the activity underway, he's uncomfortable even considering performing it himself, but has been imagining Rick in the eager lady's place from the moment she'd started, and that feels very comfortable indeed. He knows Rick would do anything he asked...but COULD he ask?

This conundrum strikes him from two directions. Pondering not only whether he's capable but also whether it's right, Dave suddenly realizes his mistake. It's wrong of him to keep looking at this as a game or a gig. If he can't truly see it as a love affair, he has no business leading Rick on by pretending.

Surprisingly, this awareness considerably eases his troubled conscience. If it's to be a romance, the only real rule is to remain honest and kind while he and Rick survey the territory together...boundries and landmarks mutually determined in their newly-founded nation of two.  
In a professional capacity, Dave has often found Rick's nonconfrontational timidity a frustration, but he's grateful for it in this unfamiliarly intimate one, secure in the surety he'll not be pushed.

The woman's work is nearly done. Dave's exhalations have become growling groans and his inhalations short, sharp hisses. Pleasure peaking, he burns to take her at her word and scream the name haunting his heart (shock anybody ELSE who might be listening...give that snooty scarecrow something to think about) but bites it back, respecting Rick's request for secrecy.

Knees weakened, he leans heavily backward into the corner, eyes still closed, envisioning Rick smiling softly up at him.

"I love you." he whispers, anticipating Richard's expression upon the first occasion Dave will soon seek for saying it to his beautiful face.


	5. Act I, Scene 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "... a rough session." leads to a tender consummation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felonious Kane wrote "The Great Gig Comes At Midnight", which details events mentioned here (used with permission), featuring Roger's deviant display with Clare, Rick crying in the studio and Dave at home watching Monty Python. This chapter is a direct sequel to FK's torrid tale, taking place not much later that same night.

It's nice to have the place to himself. Sprawled across entire sofa with a bowl of popcorn on his chest, Dave delights in the rapid-fire banter of Chapman, Cleese, Idle, Jones and Palin.

"Man, those blokes are tight." He mutters around a mouthful of crunchy kernels. "Wonder how they do it?"

That's his favorite part about this show...he sometimes misses whatever sly reference rarely earns Roger's wry chuckle...the way trippy troupe is consistently attuned but nobody seems to be in charge. 

Lazy musing suddenly interrupted by the sound of a motor pulling up then shutting off outside, he sits up abruptly, shifting the bowl onto a nearby ottoman with a vexed "Dammit!" Leaning over the back of the couch to reach the window, spreading slats slightly to peer out, his ire blooms fast into fire as he sees it's Rick...alone.

"Richard." he whispers, reclining back into awaiting repose.

Rick strives to compose his distraught features before walking in the door, knowing Dave is at home and unwilling to be seen like this (he's been fighting a mostly losing battle with tears since before his departure from Abbey Road), but he DOES want to see Dave...alone. He cautiously enters, grateful for low light.

Dave turns his head to offer a smile of welcome but otherwise makes no move from what he's sure is a fetching pose. Rick doesn't even seem to notice, walking right past the sofa with his face averted, prompting Dave to alter his alluring attempts.

"Richard..." he calls softly, rearranging to make room "...would you like to come sit with me?"

Rick halts, tormented and torn. He wants nothing more than to accept Dave's invitation but can feel the tears winning again. Dave doesn't deserve drama, and Rick knows he can neither suppress his distress nor bear the thought of appearing pathetic.

"It was a rough session." He tries to keep the looming choke from his voice, aware if he meets Dave's lovely eyes his own will spill over. "I should be going to bed."

The way Rick had uttered "...rough..." and the unnerving fact that he won't look at him has Dave on his feet, next words impulsively leaving his lips without consideration of implication.

"Let me come with you?"

NOW Rick meets his concerned gaze, eyes wide with shock and aswim with anguish. Dave is at his side, reaching out to take one of Rick's hands in both of his.

"Richard..." he tries quietly "...what did He do to you?"

"Not ME..." Rick's stifled sob breaks free, tears flowing afresh "...Clare."

"He did something to CLARE?" A spike of anxiety twangs like an overtuned string in Dave's mind and voice. This could be bad...that maniac may have finally gone too far. "Rick...Richard...What the hell happened?"

Rick tries to turn away, but Dave pulls him close. "I don't want to talk about it." he cries, head falling onto Dave's shoulder.

Dave fears they might NEED to. "Is Clare all right?"

"I should say SO!" Rick wails bitterly, and Dave can feel the warmth of tears through the thin cotton of his shirt as Rick sobs against him. "You'll hear the fucking thing for yourself...along with everybody ELSE in the whole bloody WORLD."

Dave's incredibly confused, but Rick's clearly overwrought and Dave knows he's unlikely to get anything coherent unless he can calm him down. He holds Rick to his chest with one arm, slipping other hand up to stroke his hair, smoothly sweeping strands from troubled brow upon which he plants a soft kiss.

"Do you still want to go to bed?"

Rick's unsure what Dave's saying, so can find no answer, continuing to weep in his embrace until Dave gently cups his chin, tears upon calloused fingers, raising reddened eyes.

"Richard, look at me." Dave's been waiting to tell him... "I love you."

Rick's face undergoes a radiant transformation and although the tears do not stop they seem to take on a joyous quality as Dave continues.

"Please let me help."

Overwhelmed, Rick is barely able to gasp out "How?"

Dave improvises. "Well, we could kick off our shoes, lie down in bed, smoke some reefer and you can tell me about the rough session. All right?"

Rick manages a weak, watery smile. "That sounds wonderful."

He slowly backs out of Dave's arms, taking him by the hand as they walk down the hall together and into Rick's bedroom. Dave closes the door behind them as Rick releases his hand to sit down heavily, almost a collapse, upon his bed. He sighs deeply as he bends to unlace his boots, and once they're off he reaches to retrieve a cigarette pack from the nightstand, from which he extracts a joint. Dave leans down to offer him a light and, as the flame sparks, Rick looks up at him with the firelight reflected in his eyes outshone by the love. 

Fire is catching, and as Dave watches Rick inhale he feels high before his first puff.

Rick hands him the smoldering spliff, which Dave hits while walking around to the other side of the bed where he flops down on his back to blow smoke at the ceiling before giving the stick back to Rick. They pass it back and forth a few times without speaking, Rick in silent awe to be at last beholding his beloved in his bed...something he'd thought could never happen.

The joint has gone out, and Rick drops it into an ashtray, lying down beside Dave. This'll be tough to tell, but if he doesn't unpack the nasty baggage there's no way he can fairly focus on whatever else he hopes to happen here. Where...how...to begin, though?

"So..." Dave gently prompts "...Clare?"

He's guessed this might have something to do with Roger getting the girl. Sexy singer was a hot-to-trot handful, for sure, and Rick had seemed more than a little fond of her attentions...and she of his, from what he'd said earlier this week. Still, he couldn't be THIS upset over her sucking up to (or sucking off) Roger, could he? He retakes Rick's hand in his and waits for the story.

"YOU know how He can be..." Rick begins shakily, alluding to several sadistic studio sessions Dave's endured. "...says it'll make the music better..." he can't escape a grudging admission "...maybe it DOES...but it's really just because He's a pervert."

Dave agrees with that assessment, flicker of fury filtering fleeting flashes of Roger's often humiliating torments, asking "Did he lock her up?"

"He TIED her up!" Rick responds indignantly.

Unbidden but not at all unpleasant image of Clare bound spread-eagled to his bedposts rises in Dave's thoughts, and he presses for details. "Tied her up WHERE, the recording booth? To what...WITH what?"

Rick worries Dave might not believe this crazy story, but is glad he seems willing to hear it. "He built some kind of...sex chair...and chained her up to it like an animal. He put her in a collar...hit her with a crop... and she LOVED it...you should've seen her FACE..." 

Dave wishes he HAD, but wouldn't dream of saying so.

"He made her SING while he tore off her clothes and beat her...like an ANIMAL, Dave." Rick's weeping again as he whispers "Both of them."

That's a lot to process at once, but Dave trusts Rick's not exaggerating. Twisted thread of admiration and arousal over Roger's audacity unspools into his sympathy for Rick's obvious ordeal. God DAMN, Roger...right there in the studio...while Rick was...?

"What were you doing during all this?"

"My job." Rick utters miserably, tears slipping silently down over his ears to drip onto the pillow. "Can you imagine...?"

Dave's imagining, all right, and wonders if HE's a pervert for savoring the thought of his gentle, tender Richard playing the piano while Roger vents vile venom on somebody who actually LIKES it...foxy Clare hitting high notes while Roger hits HER...oooh.

"Did He record it?" Dave can't WAIT to hear this track, and is envious he wasn't there to see deviant display Rick so wretchedly wishes not to have witnessed.

"Of COURSE..." Rick still cries quietly, lamenting "Everyone will hear the Thing, and they'll probably KNOW...they'll think we're ALL like that."

Dave rolls onto his side to slide his free hand across Rick's slightly hitching chest, pulling himself nearer to whisper in Rick's ear, kissing away tears "There's something they WON'T know...that WE are."

Rick thrills at the words and the contact, turning his head to meet Dave's lips with his own, tasting salty sadness upon them as his sorrow shifts into bliss. Reveling in Dave's earlier declaration and current closeness, Rick has no more time for tears amidst the simultaneous sensations of the softness of tongue slipping between his lips and also a distinctly heated hardness pressed against his hip. A small sound of ecstatic surprise escapes into their kiss, turning into a tremulous moan as Dave applies liberal leverage to smoothly slide his body atop of Rick's while continuing to kiss him with impassioned intensity.

The bedsprings give a squeal beneath their combined weight, and Rick struggles to suppress a similar sound as he arches upward under beautiful bandmate's passionate pressure. Deliciously drowning in desire, Rick knows he must breathe but isn't sure he can. As much as he adores Dave's deeply delving tongue, it would never do to choke on it. Reluctantly removing his mouth to steal small sips of air, he runs fevered fingers across the taut planes of Dave's back, one hand sliding up and the other down...down...until he's palming the firm curve of one cheek to push their hips even closer together.

Dave buries flushed face into flesh of Rick's throat, lavishing a flurry of kisses along the lines of his beard. Not having ever worked around facial hair, he finds feeling whiskers against his lips as stirring as the other unfamiliar sensation below the waist. Rick's trembling beneath him, and the slight motion makes Dave all the more aware of their mutual ardently apparent arousal. He experimentally rolls his hips for friction, gratified at Rick's responsive groan. Dave's not sure how to proceed, just that nothing has ever felt so sweet as Richard's love and that he has no wish to stop.

Dave considers the possibility that HE might cry if anything interrupts them NOW...that his heart could break if Rick were to pull away as he had last time. Rick's quiver has deepened and slowed to sync with Dave's steady, rhythmic rocking, a tempting tease of gentle yet insistent grinding . A keening warble begins in the back of Rick's throat, which Dave can feel against his lips upon the front of it, seemingly tied to the motion of his body, louder with each thrust and ebbing with subsequent subtle subsiding. He can't resist another experiment, pressing himself more intensely against Rick, holding still for a few beats, and, sure enough, the sound swells and sustains. He tries a few rapid, almost bouncing bumps in quick succession and Rick's ululation is broken into short, staccato sighs. Again, he wishes he'd seen Roger's performance with Clare, knowing that THIS intimate instrumentation is purely private.

Rick recognizes what Dave's doing and feels a brief flash of empathy for Clare. Not that HE'D ever wish to be fitted with collar and chain (or...horrors...touched by Roger), but it does feel exquisite to be so temptingly tuned, and he wonders if he might be able to conduct similar orchestration upon Dave. He's in no state to attempt such carnal composition now, nearly blinded by bliss of Dave's amorous attentions. A burning throb has taken up time with his racing pulse and his arms can't seem to hold his beloved as close as he needs him to be, although any closer would mean...Ohhh, why must he long for more when what Dave is generously giving already exceeds expectation?

Rick's head has begun to toss from side to side on the pillow as his sighs become cries. Dave raises his face to look down at Rick's, glorying in the obvious ecstasy upon it.

"I love you, Richard." he pronounces quietly but clearly before sealing Rick's moaning mouth with his, allowing him no chance to answer.

The sound that erupts between their locked lips might have been a scream had it not been muffled by entwined tongues. Rick's body spasms beneath Dave's, arms convulsively tightening and fingers reflexively digging into the flesh beneath them. They ride the tide together, Dave holding himself still, letting the waves of Rick's release wash over him, flooding several senses at once. His brain blazes with pride, tinged lightly with relief, to have helped Rick reach such splendid satisfaction with no need of skills he does not (yet?) possess.

Once the quakes have dwindled to aftershocks and the cloudbursts cease to thunder in his ears, Rick fears to open his eyes. Dave is no longer kissing him, so that must mean he's watching, and Rick dreads whatever expression he might see, even after he discerns Dave's tender murmur.

"Come back to me."

Dave's hair sweeps the pillow as he leans down to await Rick's return, curtaining their faces together in softly striated shadow. When Rick finally opens his eyes, Dave's disturbed to behold a look of worry, almost fear, rather than the sated glow he'd anticipated.

"Richard, what is it?" he asks anxiously "Did I do something wrong?"

"No!" Rick assures him before reclosing his eyes tightly to inquire in a small, timid voice, as if terrified of Dave's critical response "Did I?"

Dave kisses the delicate skin of both closed lids and says nothing, waiting patiently for Rick to look at him again. When at last he does, Dave tells him sincerely "That was exactly what I wanted. Thank you."

Simple expression of acceptance and gratitude eases Rick's mind and touches his heart (Syd had never said "thank you"). Anxiety abated, he notes Dave's rigid length still firmly against him and dares a question.

"Is that...ALL...you want?"

"Is that an offer?" Dave prays it is, for he's begun to ache and hasn't been sure how...or even IF...he might frame a request.

"Yes!" Rick avows, alight. "What can I do?"

Dave stifles a frustrated groan, opting instead for a playful grin as he takes Rick by the shoulders to roll them both onto their sides. "I don't KNOW that, Richard. You'll have to show me."

Rick smiles back, hesitant but eager. "What do you want?" he blushes to whisper "I'll do anything."

"All right, then..." decides Dave, with a swallow he hopes doesn't come off as a nervous gulp, trusting that Rick's desires will prove as considerate and unselfish as his nature "...anything." He strokes Rick's face lightly, roughened fingertips grazing glossy bristles. "Please tell me what you want from me."

Awed at Dave's unbelievable proposition (Syd had never said "please"), Rick melts against his unbearably beautiful body to utter into his ear what he's unable to say to his unearthly gorgeous face.

"I want you...naked."

Dave sits up to slowly strip off his shirt, saying softly as his hand drifts down to the button of his jeans "I hope that's not...ALL...you want."

Rick's gaze greedily devours Dave's disrobing, a vision of which he's so often dreamed, promising "It's not."

Dave lies back down beside him, and Rick is nearly beside himself. As his sight sweeps savory spectacle of supine splendor, the only words he can speak are "I love you."

"Show me." Dave urges, and Rick resolves to do just that. If his actions now are weak, Dave might misconstrue his love to be.

With more boldness than he feels (but still less than in his dreams), Rick straddles Dave's thighs before carefully wedging a knee to gently lever them apart, creating the room he requires to kneel on the mattress. Leaning forward while sliding down, Rick stretches out on his belly between Dave's spread legs, freeing his hands to caress exposed skin both above and below, working toward each other to wrap together around heavenly hardness.

Dave is stunned at Rick's unexpected initiative, gasping at his grasp then craning his head up to watch Rick's go down. It's his fantasy come true to behold the sight and sensation of Rick taking him into marvelous mouth with agonizing slowness but surprisingly obvious confidence. Inciting and inviting warmth rises like a thermal current, seeming to flow from fluid friction of Rick's lips to emerge from Dave's as a soaring wordless lyric.

Rick longs to draw erotic etude into concupiscent concerto, to navigate Dave's octaves at loving leisure, but feels finding and fine-tuning frequencies must wait until next time. He hopes wholeheartedly for there to BE a next time, an eager eventuality far more likely if he gives his utmost dedication to THIS session.

Dave adds another pillow under his head to elevate the viewing angle, even though his vision is beginning to blur. He wants to reach down and brush away Rick's slightly obscuring hair, but fears any interference with such skillful service. His fingers instead begin to twist into the sheets beneath him, gripping as low growls grow louder. Watching with an eye toward cultivating this torrid talent in himself, Rick's apparent pleasure in it convinces Dave he'll never again cast a glance across stage or studio without recollecting delectable duet they're playing together tonight, heatedly hoping Rick will wish repeated reprises.

Dave has likened oral overtures upon women to the harmonica (which he can play), but THIS might be more akin to the oboe (which he cannot). Imagining intimidating undertaking, understanding that for his Richard he is willing to learn, is Dave's last coherent cognition as crescendo creeps, coasts, crests then crashes.

Rick steadfastly surfs sublime surges as the dam breaks open, raising radiantly resplendent revel, reaping rich reward. Until this moment, he'd harbored dire doubts dear Dave has been being chivalrously charitable, kindly catering to pitiable pining, but he now knows tantalizing taste impossible to fake. He'd been so afraid merest misstep might snap slender strand permitting passionate pretense, but proof of true trust and real romantic reciprocity lies bare and breathless before his eyes. Dave had offered him "...anything..", and what he'd elected to take has clearly been gladly given.

Richard's love has, at long last, become his lover.


	6. Act I, Scene 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a secret, but neither "dirty nor "little...

Dave jerks awake at a startling prod in his ribs, not sharp, but somewhat ticklesome, eyes flying open to behold Rick gazing intently into them with a tenderly indulgent smile.

"You were snoring."

"Was I?" He yawns, lazily wrapping arms around Rick to draw him down against his bare chest, murmuring "Put out the light and come back to sleep with me."

Tempting as that sounds, Rick remains reluctant. "You can't stay, Dave."

This abrupt admonishment cuts through his halcyon haze. He hasn't been kicked out of bed since youthful dalliance with a married lady. Then he KNEW the reason, but now isn't sure. "Why not?"

Rick can't bring himself to articulate further than "You KNOW...", hoping Dave won't press him to elaborate upon his previously admitted fear of exposure.

Dave remembers Rick's request to stay secret, but hadn't known it still applied. Apparently so... "Come to my room, then." he proposes "It's got a lock."

That's a lovely prospect, too, but...Rick sighs. Dave's going to make him say it. How to put this?

"It's not about anybody coming IN..." he begins hesitantly, grateful his position lying upon Dave's chest keeps him from having to look at his face "...more about how I... we... would look coming OUT." He attempts a bit of levity. "Besides, your room's a pigsty."

"Oink." Dave says solemnly, kissing the top of Rick's tousled head before asking "Would it be so bad if anybody..." he pauses "...or EVERYbody knew?"

Rick literally shudders to contemplate, answering quietly "Yes. It would be horrible."

Dave feels Rick's brief tremble in his arms, and can't help but take the words a trifle personally, although he keeps his tone kindly considerate. "Are you very ashamed of this...of us?"

Rick can't let him think that. He's proudly thrilled with recent turn of events, but... Propping up on an elbow, he regards his lover anxiously as he tries to explain. "If it were JUST us, it could be different, but it's NOT, is it? Once EVERYbody saw, it would be ALL they'd see...or WANT to see." He's not sure he's making sense, and is loath to resort to any of the cruel words he fears to be called, at last choosing the mildest card in the derogatory deck. "We'd be freaks, Dave...a sideshow...and some perverted people would be more interested in...that... than the music."

Dave has to acknowledge that's a point he hadn't considered. Now that he does, he immediately recollects a slew of personal questions he's fielded about his love life and tries to imagine formulating responses regarding relations with Rick. Somehow his habitually flirty, flippant wouldn't-YOU-like to-know? insouciance seems inappropriate, but neither does he think he'd care to discuss how he really feels on the proverbial record rather than elaborating on their literal ones, and Rick's right...they WOULD want to know.

An image arises of wet-lipped, eager-eyed female fans angling to ensnare them together ["Why don'cha bring your boyfriend? I got two hands...and three holes."], and although this does not strike him as an entirely unappealing prospect he has no idea how Rick might receive such a proposition. He makes a mental note to cautiously float that eventuality...eventually.

"Roger..." Rick utters only the name, but that single word carries a lot of weight, and it's Dave's turn to shudder.

He doubts the closemouthed discretion afforded years ago to Rick and Syd would be so generously extended to HIM. Dave believes he could bear up under ribald or even rude ridicule, deflecting with the old "You're just jealous." (which, he reflects, might even be TRUE in this case), but he'd not for all the world have his sensitive, secretive Richard mortified by mockery. Still, though...

"I'm not afraid of Him." Dave declares, although a vicious whisper ["Careful with that axe, Eugene."] tauntingly haunts his bravado.

"I am." Rick simply admits, his awful auditory hallucination much more detailed than Dave's as he imagines Roger's derisive, sneering ire should some random reporter elect to ask Him about His bandmates' business. ["It's nothing to ME where either of them choose to stick it. Kindly get your knobby little mind out of David Gilmour's arse or fuck off and ask THEM. They might even let you watch...if you're into that kind of thing."]

"I know." Dave's convinced, but he heaves a rueful sigh as he reaches up to softly stroke Rick's hair out of his worried eyes. "It just seems so unfair we can't do what we like."

"We can." Rick promises, taking Dave's caressing hand in his and bestowing a kiss into the palm, folding fingers around it as if to safely secure small, secret treasure. "We WILL, but..." he trails off, unsure how to express his wishes clearly yet compassionately.

"But...?" Dave waits for Rick to elaborate. Although he's pretty sure what's coming, he needs to know Rick feels comfortable enough with him to say it.

"But..." Rick repeats, reluctantly resolute "...I wouldn't like that." His newly-forged confidence that his love is both respected and reciprocated allows him to continue "I already feel like I'm not known for much...not even noticed when the rest of you are talking...or playing..." he smiles with a hint of melancholic muse "...or fighting."

Dave longs to reassure him that's not true, but holds both his tongue and Rick's hand, letting "the quiet one" speak his mind.

"I guess it's better to be ignored than remembered for something..." Rick's voice lowers conspiratorially, although they're alone not only in the room but the whole house. "...personal."

Like any exhibitionistic fool in love, Dave still sort of wishes to sing his happy heart out to the world, but he completely understands why Rick would rather he didn't.

"I will never ignore you." he avows, sitting up to seal the promise with a kiss before casting about for his discarded clothes (he has no intentions of putting them on...nobody's home to observe him crossing to his own room, and he usually sleeps in the nude anyway). "I suppose it's for the best you won't come to my bed right now." he offers a gentle tease "I'd be so excited to have you there we'd need to start all over and neither of us would get ANY sleep."

Rick so adores the sound of that he almost changes his mind, but only teases back. "Greedy."

Dave answers with disconcertingly accurate porcine impressions, and after a few seconds of snuffling grunts, comical oinks and a muted squeal, Rick can't help but chuckle.

Overjoyed to actually laugh about this, he scolds "Do NOT let Him hear you can do that, or He'll make you do it all DAY just to get the right take for a track."

"I'd like to see Him TRY it." Dave responds with casually dismissive defiance.

THAT's not so funny...

"Please don't say that."


	7. Act I, Scene 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guest narrator cuts through the treacle...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This snarky scene has been here nearly a year under the title "Nobody Home", which I shall delete, as it now abides in proper context. Breaks my heart a little to let go of the 186 "kudos" garnered, but it had no "comments", so at least I'm not erasing anybody else's words. It remains my favorite chapter in this whole rock soap opera...so far, anyway.

It's grown too dark to make out the words and notes set down in his little black book, whether because night has fallen or because his pupils are no longer widely dilated due to delightful dose he'd earlier imbibed, dwindled now to only occasional odd, obscure flickers through otherwise fully functional faculties. The recessed nook he habitually inhabits is a heavily shadowed enclave even in daytime, and now conceals not only his presence from imaginary eyes but also his recently composed lines from his own very present and perceptive ones. No matter. He's never needed to SEE in order to KNOW. He remembers what he wrote, and is content to dream upon it a while, alone in the placid, peaceful darkness.

Slow, sweeping splash of artificial light arcs across the room from outside but does not penetrate his inky alcove. Headlights.

"Fuck me!" he snaps, discerning the ill-tuned motor belongs to the ill-tempered moron. Catchy turn of phrase, that, but he must admit (at least silently to himself) Pig's manner has seemed significantly less arbitrarily contrary of late, as if he can't be bothered to argue. Well, Roger was here FIRST, and shall not be moved. He intends to utter no greeting, no word whatsoever, composing his features into a Look To Brook No Nonsense with which to send Dave trotting off to another room (or back out into the night) with nary a snort nor a squeal. He steels his defenses for imminent invasion, both of overbright overhead incandescence as well as overbearing ignoramus, upon his eyes and mind both grown accustomed to solitary shadow.

When the irritatingly rattling engine clatters its last (he's told that lazy sod thirteen times to get a bloody tuneup) he discerns the thunk of two car doors almost simultaneously, deducing Dave's not alone. Good. Some company on his own level will make him all the more likely to leave Roger in peace. As the murmur of two voices approach the front door, he identifies the second one as Rick's.

"DOUBLE fuck me." he snarls, not at all inclined to endure the twittering lovebirds. He'll HAVE to stand up and announce his presence before they get up to anything embarrassing...for THEM...HE couldn't care less. It would be almost precious how they actually believe he's as figuratively in the dark as he now abides in it literally...if it weren't something of an insult to his intelligence and insight.

Thumb and forefinger closed upon the beaded brass chain to the shaded banker's lamp on tiny table next to his chair in the nook, Roger's loath to be exposed in the light and realizes he'd better stay silent, since the billing and cooing has begun even before they're properly in the damn door...and they're talking about him, too. This should prove amusing...

"...SO glad He's not home." Dave's voice carries around the corner as the pair enter together. "I'd have driven right by if His car had been in the drive or any lights were on."

"And gone where?" wafts Rick's teasing reply "WhereEVER would you have..." suggestive pause "...taken me?"

Roger rolls his eyes.

"I don't know." Dave replies, hungry urgency apparent "First place private. I just couldn't have stood listening to Him lecture about stupid shit when all I can think about is how much I want you."

[Stupid shit? Look who's bloody TALKING...]

Rick's response sounds no less lustful "I love that look in your eyes, but He would just KNOW if He saw it. I don't think your backseat's big enough, but I suppose we could've figured something out..."

[At least Rick has some respect...if not much TASTE.]

Dave gives a low, tremolo groan [D flat diminished], whether from something Rick might be doing or from his cute little quip Roger doesn't (want to) know. He's heartily hoping they'll bugger off somewhere ELSE to bugger off when a resounding thump at his back nearly startles him out of his chair. His nook shares a wall with the entryway, and some body just collided with it rather forcibly, followed by unmistakably wet sounds of openmouthed kissing. Liquid nature of noises makes Roger realize he's not had a piss for nearly half the day, and now he Really Wants them to take sappy show out of his hearing.

To distract, he lays a palm flat against the wall behind him. He knows their respective resonances (although not as well as they've lately learned each other's...ugh, more unwelcome thoughts in the past five minutes than the past five YEARS...damn them) and is fairly certain from vibration of wordless, throaty vocalizations that it's Dave against the wall, confirmed when moaning and groaning stops for Rick to speak in a sickeningly simpering scold.

"That was VERY naughty of you in the carpark. ANYbody could've seen..." more heavy breathing before Rick adds "I TOLD you to stop, too."

Roger can almost see Dave's smug ain't-I-somethin'? grin as he replies "You didn't really want me to stop, though, did you? " Kissing and panting resume before further boasting from prideful Pig. "Nobody saw. I was keeping watch. I know you loved it..."

Indeterminate rustling (fuck a duck, are they getting naked in the foyer?) and then a long moan from Rick before Dave's shiteating smarm.

"Mmm...feels like you might love it AGAIN."

He knows he has the power to end this anytime, but the thought of Rick slinking and sidling about mortified for months...or forEVER..is more cringe-inducing than what he's enduring. Roger sticks out tongue, crosses eyes and jabs fore-and-middle fingers together slightly into his open mouth, but what he hears next abruptly arrests universal gag-me pantomime.

Another full-bodied collision with the wall jars against his fingers spread upon it as Rick speaks with far more defiant force than Roger's ever heard from him before (albeit still with a teasing lilt). "NO. It's time for YOU to get some payback."

Roger's pretty sure next slight sound is a zipper, and his hand not on the wall silently palms his face as Rick carries on.

"I want you on the sofa...where you first kissed me...right NOW."

Dave has a gasp in his voice as he answers "As you wish, Richard."

This exchange is a mild shock. RICK giving orders and DAVE meekly obeying? Now he almost WANTS to listen...almost...but shiT...said sofa is directly in his line of sight, which means he'll be in THEIRS any second. Roger swiftly, silently shifts position until his head is tilted back and his hands rest upon the chair's armrests. When they spy him (and spaz right the fuck out, no doubt), he'll stir groggily, claiming to have been asleep and seen/heard nothing incriminating. Even if they don't truly buy it, it'll at least allow them to save some face by pretending to.

They pass within three feet of his alcove, damn near within his long reach, Roger notes through keenly slit eyes. Rick leads Dave toward the long, overstuffed couch (and not by the hand, either...for cryin' out loud, it's all he can do to keep from, well, crying out loud), neither at all aware of his presence. He swears he can SMELL the raw lust in their wanton wake, but that might just be l'aire du Dirty Dave.

["Pig" came, in part, from the fellow's reluctance to wash his clothes or hair...Rick must enjoy slumming.]

Astonished at their obliviousness, he reopens his eyes as they tumble together onto the sofa. If horny idiots haven't noticed him YET, they aren't likely to NOW. Huffing and puffing's begun again, and he hopes they get on with it. He really needs to take a leak.  
Thankfully, the darkness reduces them to little more than entangled silhouettes, but such forgiving obfuscation obscuring ocular offense in no way extends to awful aural affront.

"Oh, Richard, I've been dreaming of your touch." Dave groans between sighs "Your beautiful hands on me...all OVER me...playing me like your piano."

[What's better than roses on your piano? Tulips on your organ.] Roger stifles a groan of very different sort. He's no fan of ensuing smooching sounds, but if they're kissing at least they'll shut up.

"I love you." Rick moans (as the noises continue...damn it, Dave must be kissing him somewhere other than his mouth).

"Show me." Dave's words are muffled (against what part of Rick's anatomy Roger tries...unsuccessfully...to avoid imagining) and have the ring of an established, inside reference.

[Rick's likely shown him a lot lately.]

"Please, Richard..." Dave's voice is a desperate whine as uncharacteristic as Rick's earlier assertiveness. "I love you...NEED you. Don't make me beg."

[Too late. Rick's either really good or Dave's laying it on thick. At least "love" is mutually declared, whether or not it's mutually felt.]

Squeak of springs as shapes shift, twin clops of Dave's hastily kicked-off shoes hitting the floor then drawn-out whisper of denim turned inside out.

"Wish I could see you." Rick sighs wistfully "Should I turn on the little lamp in Roger's corner so you can watch ME?"

[Fuck. "Sleeping" dodge won't work if Dave's dick is hanging out upon "awakening", now will it?]

"No, stay and turn ME on." Dave pleads "If you disappear I'll be afraid you won't come back."

Roger squashes sadistic urge to snap the little light on himself, suppressing the rising sensation in his throat somewhere between a gag and a giggle. [Oh, why can't they get a ROOM? It isn't as if there's any shortage of doors that close in this house.] Apparently the double-damned couch has some sentimental significance. He'd erroneously assumed aforementioned "first kiss" took place at his piano (what the hell had they done THERE, then?). If discretion's such a concern, thrashing about like a pair of eels in the common area's most unwise, but the course of true love never did run smart.

Dave's next utterance is a rather lovely G sharp soaring into B, cresting edge of D before breaking off into a gasping inhalation. Roger has the implicit impression Rick won't be saying anything else for a while, and he uses their obviously mutual focus upon decadent duet to readjust his position, crossing one knee over the other in attempt to deflect distracting discomfort.

[Funny how Rick's likely never SAID the WORD "blowjob" without blushing, but seems at ease with the action.]

Since he couldn't tune out hedonistic harmony if he wanted, Roger makes a game of arranging it. He'd said he felt played like one, so Dave's vocals can be piano...no, not cleanly distinct enough...some warbly synthesizer with chords that bleed together. Rick's making muted, almost whimpering (but nonetheless ecstatic) humming noises...something reedy. Oboe? Too low...clarinet, maybe alto sax. As tempo increases, so does volume, squeaking springs beneath them evoking pizzicato viola...could possibly get away with harmonica.

[Holy cow, this is actually sort of beautiful. They should get co-writing credit...and this time they'd have (literally) fucking EARNED it, even if (as usual) they'd fail to fully UNDERSTAND the nuances of its composition.]

Action's clearly in endgame...if he'd known Dave could make THOSE sounds he'd have tapped them for ANIMALS...and not a moment too soon. His knee's begun to jitter. Although he's not quite at squirming stage yet, he'll have no choice but to reveal himself if they're the kind of couple who need an hour of pillow-talk afterward.

Crescendo's culmination subsides to stillness, broken after several bars of whole rests by Dave's quiet affirmation. "You're amazing, Richard. I love you."

[Hmm. He says it in the afterglow as well, not merely beforehand for seduction. Maybe he's not such a pig, after all.]

"Thank you." is Rick's simple reply.

[Neither fretful fishing for further feedback nor need to echo the sentiment. This Thing appears to be improving them both.]

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Dave's curious inquiry sounds respectful, not at all prurient or invasive.

Roger's fairly certain the answer's "Syd.", and is surprised at Rick's response.

"Women, I suppose. I just paid attention to what they've done...with me."

"Wow." says Dave, in a tone resembling awe "I must've been paying the wrong kind of attention." Several beats of silence elapse before he speaks again, seeming strangely shy. "Richard...could you teach me?"

[Oh, HELL, no! FuckfuckFUCK. Dave is NOT a quick study. This'll take AGES.] Roger's never been a praying man, but he offers a blessing of gratitude, gleaning Rick's demurral.

"Next time...if you want." followed by what sounds like a jaw-cracking yawn. [His jaw's probably cracked, all right.] "I'm sleepy. Aren't you?"

"Yeah." Dave admits "But I'm too cozy to move."

"Well, I"M going to bed." Rick laughs lightly between sporadic smoochy sounds. "Don't come crying to ME if somebody ELSE pounces you, lying out here like a naked fallen angel."

[Henry Higgins pipes up: "What, THAT thing? Sacred, I assure you."]

"Fallen for you." Dave declares drowsily.

[Oh, for heaven's sake...]

Noises indicate Rick's risen from the sofa when Dave softly begs "Wait...", slowly stirring to stand "...don't leave me yet. I want to kiss you goodnight."

[This is some serious sap...a man could lapse into diabetic coma.]

Finally their cutesy, cuddlesome carcasses creep out of his stoic sightline, but still stand well within his long-suffering earshot.

"I'll be dreaming about next time..." Dave confides "...my tasty, tempting teacher."

Rick gives a shivery sigh. "My sexy student...I'll be dreaming about you at the head of my...class."

Roger's dreaming about the pleasant, peaceful, PRIVATE padded cell (with a toilet, please) for which he feels he'll be fitted after much more of this mawkish madness, wondering what he's ever done to deserve such tawdry torture.

[Well, there IS that...and THAT...and that OTHER Thing wasn't very sporting, either. Okay, maybe karma IS real and all this saccharine "sweet sorrow" shit somehow serves as just desserts for too many occasions of being salty, sour or bitter.]

Their final kiss outside Dave's door goes on long enough for Roger to risk drumming impatient fingertips upon the armrests, confident neither of those clueless pups could discern the rapid, restive raps at that distance even if they WEREN'T completely preoccupied, silently swearing that if there's any further fluffy, fluttery fawning he'll need to puke as well as piss. When at last the latch clicks closed, he isn't sure which side of Dave's door Rick's on until a wistful whisper wafts from the hall.

"Next time..." barely reaches Roger's ears as Rick opens his own bedroom door then subsequently closes it behind him. The second after Roger registers shutting snick, he's on his feet.

"Thank GOD!" he growls gratefully, striding briskly toward the lavatory. "Not that there's a God."


	8. Act I, Scene 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks (Three Different Ones)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JennieBlackheart wrote "Syd's Riding Crop", which inspired me to give him one here.

"Richard, will you tell me about...Syd?" 

Lovers lie naked and entwined beneath blankets in Dave's bed, triple flicker of fat three-wick candle the room's only illumination. He feels sweetly slaked, but not wholly sated, and hopes to entice Rick into sharing a naughty bedtime story.

"You knew him better than I did." Rick coyly evades. "Didn't the two of you starve around all of Europe for a year?"

Dave regards him solemnly, eyes aglow with firelight. "You know what I mean."

Rick supposes he does, and had wondered if this subject was going to come up. Some partners want to pretend previous romances never existed, but others dig for dirty details. Dave IS the nosy type, but maybe he deserves a few answers, if he really cares to hear them. Rick hasn't spoken of his affair with Syd to another soul (he and Syd had never discussed it either...unless it was currently happening, they'd both behaved as if it weren't), and it might be nice to share.

"What do you want to know?"

What Dave really wants is practical information about the actual acts...who did what to whom, and anything specific Rick especially enjoys, or doesn't...but inquires only "What was it like?"

Overlapping flashbacks fleetly flit, fiercely fighting for forefront. The word that very nearly escapes is "Crazy.", but Rick bites it back, eyes and mouth tightly closed but mind blown wide by Dave's open question. 

Detecting distress, Dave feels like a pig for asking. "I'm sorry." He ducks his head beneath Rick's chin to murmur against his throat "If you don't want to talk about it..."

Rick strokes Dave's hair, acquiescing "I'll tell you whatever you ask, but that's hard to answer. It wasn't like anything..." he sighs, amending "...or it was like everything...always different, y'know...like him."

Dave can imagine. He's been curious to learn..."How did it start?"

Rick vividly recollects the first time...

[Syd had been that touchy-feely kind of high he got sometimes, the flirty frolicsome manner that Nick just laughed off with a "g'wan-ya-big-silly" and Roger tolerated with the long-suffering air of an old dog beset by nippy pup (sometimes a growl or a snap should Syd's liberties get too liberal). Rick had always found it unsettling when Syd had turned those casual intimacies on HIM, but he'd never told him to stop. 

"Riiiiicharrrrrd." Syd purred out his name, sliding closer on the sofa to lean his head on Rick's shoulder. "You look lonesome. Come give us a cuddle." He'd rubbed one palm across Rick's chest, toying with the buttons of his shirt, turning his face to plant several light kisses on the flesh of Rick's neck.

Rick hadn't known what to do with his hands, or quite what to make of Syd's hot breath and soft lips against his skin. He'd wanted to return the embrace, but had been nervously considering it might be some weird tease or test, and that if he showed too much interest Syd would pull away laughing at him. He HAD been interested, though, a fact Syd proceeded to discover as the hand on Rick's chest dropped down to his lap. He'd been awkwardly embarrassed, but Syd had seemed delighted with what he'd found.

"Oooh, look what you have for me." He'd licked Rick's ear before whispering into it "I knew you loved me, Richard." He'd continued to offer maddeningly slight squeezes, confiding conspiratorially "Roger loves me, too, but HE won't admit it. I got THIS far with him once, but then he HIT me, the big meanie. You're nice, aren't you? You won't be so selfish...so stingy...like him, will you?"

Nothing could have been a more enticing inducement. Already aroused from the contact, Rick had thrilled to hear HE could share something Roger couldn't, even if he hadn't been sure what, exactly, Syd had in mind. "What..." his voice had cracked to ask "...do you want?"

Syd had answered only "This." before pushing Rick back onto the sofa to lie halfway atop him, hand still busily stroking as he'd brought his lips to meet Rick's, eager tongue slipping slickly between them. Rick had moaned into the kiss, his body picking up a slight tremble, upon which Syd had pulled his mouth away to comment "You're not scared, are you?"

"No..." Rick managed, although he had been...a little.

Syd had correctly assessed the cause of his tremors after that, grinning wickedly down at him. "You're close, then, yeah? Am I driving you wild? So hot for me you're gonna cream yourself?" His grip tightened, tempo of touch increasing, and Rick had known he couldn't take much more.

"Syd, please..." unsure if he'd been begging for respite or release.

"Tell me you love me." Syd had commanded, and Rick had helplessly obeyed, desperate declaration coming out in a rising wail as his writhing had become bucking, thrusting himself against Syd's scintillating stroke. "Oh, MY, you really DO." Syd exalted, bending down to kiss the warmly sticky patch spreading on the front of Rick's trousers. "Look how much."

Rick had been too shocked and confused to speak, but Syd hadn't wanted any more of his words...Rick could tell what he DID want as he'd climbed Rick's weakened, quivering form to straddle his chest, knees tucked against his armpits. Mere inches from Rick's face, Syd had undone his flies and drawn out stiffened length to brush flushed, swollen tip against Rick's lips.

"Open up, Richard. Don't be mean. I know you want me."

Rick hadn't been sure about that, but hadn't felt he'd any right to refuse after what Syd had done for him. He'd parted his lips and allowed Syd to slide himself along his tongue, tightening the walls of his mouth upon the unfamiliar penetration, trying to recollect how women had performed this action for HIM, anxious to prove he's not "mean"...he's NOT "stingy"...he could be better than Roger at SOMETHING...more generous...more loving.

"Yessss..." Syd had hissed "Ohhh, that's right, you're going to take ALL of it." he'd reached down to twine his fingers into Rick's hair, holding his head still as the pace of his pumping hips picked up both speed and depth.

Syd's grip on his hair had become almost painful when the first thick, hot spurts struck the back of Rick's throat, making him reflexively swallow to avoid choking once, then again as eruption continued. Rick had taken great, shuddering breaths after Syd withdrew from his mouth to collapse onto him, reaching up to trace his lips with a gently teasing finger.

"Good boy...didn't spill a drop." He'd given Rick an archly knowing leer "You've done this before."

Almost an accusation, and Rick had felt the need to protest his innocence. "I haven't, Syd...not ever."

The caressing fingertip turned to a sternly wagging one. "Oh, don't lie. I KNOW you must have done, 'cause there's no such thing as a "natural" in real life. Nobody's THAT good at ANYthing his first try." Syd smirks "Who was he, Richard? I bet it was Roger. THAT's why he turned ME down...YOU already snapped him up."

"NO!" Rick blurted, conflicted. He'd been unsure whether to feel flattered at Syd's assessment of his skill or offended at being called a liar, then had been downright horrified at the suggestion of Roger, hoping that was just one of Syd's jokes and not a serious speculation. He'd tried one more time. "I wouldn't lie. I REALLY haven't...before you."

"Fine." Syd had pouted, clearly still disbelieving "HAVE your saucy little secrets." He'd arisen from the couch, blowing Rick a kiss before turning to saunter away, then tossed back over a departing shoulder "You won't keep them long. You're my lover now, and I'll get EVERYthing out of you soon enough."]

Rick can't tell Dave all of that (he'd look like a slut...feels like one just remembering) but he must tell him the truth, and he struggles to decide how to condense the torrid memory into something fit for his beloved's ears. "He sort of...seduced me, I guess. Said I looked lonesome...made me feel good...told me he knew I loved him...before I even knew it myself."

Dave had hoped for more, but supposes he might not be asking the right questions. "Were you lonesome?"

"Yes." is Rick's monosyllabic reply.

"You say he made you feel good..." Dave tries another tack "Emotionally or...physically?"

"Both." Another single-word answer, but Rick adds one more almost too quietly to hear "Usually..."

This is like pulling teeth, but Dave seizes the thread of that final word. So, there'd been exceptions? Well, knowing what to avoid might be helpful, too. "Did he ever want anything...you didn't?"

Rick flashes back to that terrible night...

["Riiiicharrrd..." Syd's voice had been an exasperated whine "You're not doing it HARD enough. Come ON, it doesn't even feel like you MEAN it."

Rick hadn't meant it. Not at all. Syd's backside was already crisscrossed with red stripes, and he'd known he couldn't bring himself to use any MORE force, although Syd had kept demanding increasingly brutal strokes. He hadn't minded (much) when Syd had taken the crop to HIM, but being made to wield it himself was torture.

"I don't want to..." had been very difficult to say, loath to refuse his lover anything, no matter how distasteful.

"All right." Syd had allowed, making a different demand "C'mon and fuck me, then."

"I can't..." Rick quietly confessed, prompting Syd to turn around with vicious glare.

"CAN'T? Why the hell not?"

It had taken all of Rick's resolve to admit "I don't like this game."

Syd had snapped "What the fuck is wrong with you? You liked it fine LAST time."

Rick regarded the crop in his hands, wanting nothing more than to fling it across the room, but not quite daring. "That was when YOU were using it." He'd hesitated before the words he'd often said but could never be sure how Syd would take "I love you. I don't want to hurt you."

"Well, you're NOT." Syd snarled "If you REALLY loved me you'd give me what I want, but since you CAN'T you can get the fuck out." Rick had stood, dumbstruck, as Syd strode nude to snatch the crop away from him. "Gimme that. You don't even know what to DO with it, anyway. I'm sure I won't have to look TOO far to find a man around here who isn't a limpdick crybaby. Go on..." he'd shouted "Get OUT."

Rick hadn't been crying yet, but had known he would any second. He'd turned mutely away and left Syd to his frustrated fury.]

Dave hears the choke in Rick's voice as he answers his last question. "He wanted me to hurt him. To HIT him with a riding crop."

So THAT'S why he'd been so upset about the "rough session" with Roger and Clare. He has to know, though... "Did you do it?"

"Not good enough..." Rick admits miserably "He called me names...kicked me out...said I didn't really love him." A single sob before "But I DID...that's WHY I couldn't..."

Dave can't stand to see his tender friend in pain, or to think his prurient prying has been the cause. "Please, Richard...tell me something nice now. What's the BEST he ever made you feel?"

Another memory...

["Riiicharrrrd, come in and wash my back." Syd had called from the bath.

Rick had entered the tiled, echoing chamber to behold Syd reclining languidly in the tub, wreathed in steam, his wet flesh pale above the waterline and pink below it. Syd liked his baths very hot indeed, Rick had learned, often hotter than he himself could stand.

"There you are, my love." Syd's face had lit up to spy him and he'd opened dripping arms invitingly. "Come here and kiss me. I've missed you."

Rick had gladly obliged, approaching to kneel beside the tub, thinking that he felt closest to his secret lover when Syd took one of these turns. The affectionate vulnerability made him feel needed and strong, but it was a rare mood and could turn on a dime for the slightest (or NO) reason, so Rick had taken pleasure to encourage and indulge Syd's every whim whenever it surfaced. As their kiss had tenderly elapsed, Rick's shirt was soon soaked from the warm, wet embrace. He'd sneaked peeks to observe Syd's erection thickening underwater, causing his own to begin tenting against his zipper.

"Get in with me." Syd murmured, and Rick had eagerly stripped off his clothes while Syd pulled the stopper to drain a bit out against overflow. The tub would be a tight fit for two, but they had managed before...

Rick suppressed any sign of discomfort as he'd stepped into the near-boiling bath, deeming as he'd eased into the water that a slight scald was a small price for the savory sensation of slick, steaming Syd beneath his own burning body.

"Why can't we be together like this every day, Richard?" Syd had sighed. "It just breaks my heart I can't kiss you..." he'd demonstrated "...hold you..." his arms had wrapped around Rick's waist "...whenever I want."

Rick had learned it was best not to say much when Syd was so sweet like this (anything might be the wrong thing), just to let him spin out his daydreams.

"I wish we never had to..." Syd made a face at the word "...WORK again. I NEVER want to touch another pesky guitar or smell another manky old microphone or set foot in one more stupid bloody studio." He'd turned pleading eyes up to Rick's "Would you run away with me, Richard? We could be gypsy vagabonds and do as we please all the time."

"Why do you want to run away?" Rick had asked softly, unsure how to answer, except with another gentle kiss.

"Everything...everybody...except YOU..." Syd clung to him tightly, sloshing water over the lip of the tub "...is just so CRAZY. All they care about is making money...or music...being good at THINGS...but you're different, Richard. You care about being a good PERSON. You never laugh at me, or boss me around...or treat me like I'm mental. That's why I love you best of all...and wish it could just be me and you..." he'd whispered the last word "...forever."

Rick's heart had felt as heatedly overflowing as the porcelain cocoon in which they'd lain within one another's embrace. Syd had rarely spoken of "love" at all, and no one had ever offered him "forever". Still, he hadn't been able to help wondering if Syd truly meant it...or would tomorrow even if he did at this glorious, fleeting moment.]

Meeting Dave's serene, sincere gaze (so different from Syd's, which had almost always seemed either tormented or tormenting), Rick tries to explain, praying Dave will believe him. "I loved him so much...maybe more than was smart...but I never knew if he ever really loved me...and I know you do. He did make me feel special...sometimes...and loved, but not the way you have."

Dave discerns the veracity in Rick's voice, longing to kiss him for it, but continues to listen calmly without interruption, knowing there's more.

"He also made me feel horrible...sometimes...and you never do. Ever since you first kissed me, you've been nothing but wonderful...always."

"Even now?" Dave fears he's put Rick through this selfish fishing trip for nothing...he hasn't even caught anything...but Rick's smile eases his mind.

"Of course." Rick reassures him "Maybe I needed to remember...to tell you how much better this is...we are."

At this Dave can no longer hold back neither a kiss nor a confession. First one, then the other. "I was wrong to pry, though, instead of saying what I wanted. I'm just worried...well, that Syd was very..." he takes a deep breath, glad it's too dark for Rick to see his blush "...exciting for you, and that I'm...not. I hoped asking about how it was with him might teach me what I can do to keep you from getting bored with me."

Rick's heart soars. Beautiful, brave, practically perfect Dave is worried about holding HIS interest? He never would have known...

"Dave, you're doing EVERYthing for me." Rick avows "Just hearing you say you love me is a dream come true. I've never been so happy as I am with you."

"I feel like I'm groping in the dark."

"I love how it feels when you grope me in the dark." Rick teases

"So do I..." Dave wholeheartedly agrees "...but is that enough?"

Rick senses he shouldn't answer yet, and it's his turn to wait while Dave thinks before he speaks.

"What I'm trying to say is...if you don't want..." This is difficult. All he can manage is "...more...than what we're doing, that's okay, but if you DO..." he looks into Rick's open, earnest face and tries to match the expression "I won't be offended, or scared away...but you gotta TELL me, Richard. Please." He knows expressing his own wishes doesn't come easily to Rick, so he asks with a grin. "Do you have any fantasies about me?"

Another cascade of superimposed images...all gorgeous this time. Although overjoyed at Dave's promise, Rick's sure SOME of his wanton wishes might be beyond the proverbial pale, and utters only "So many..."

Dave realizes THAT's the bedtime story he should've sought to begin with. "Tell me one."

Rick's final flashback spurs him to say "I want to see you...touch you...in the bath. Maybe even...get in with you."

Dave savors several chords struck by that idea. Warm water and slippery soap...yeah...Finally, something he can use. He sits up, pulling Rick with him.

"Come on." Dave declares decisively "Let's get dressed. I know a place with lovely...BIG...Jacuzzi tubs in all the suites."

Rick throws eager, grateful arms around him. "That sounds like heaven. I'll bring my favorite shampoo...I've also got a fantasy about washing your hair."


	9. Act I, Scene 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday to Rick. Dave blows out his candle...

Dave lies atop his rumpled quilts, flipping a coin and listening to the distant din from poolside party. He'd made his excuses and flaked off when Roger had started holding court, decreeing convoluted rules for some screwy game of forfeits...fuck THAT noise. The object restively shifting between his fingers is an ancient antiquity, a golden disc he'd acquired in Pompeii and has often handled reverently since. He loves the connotations...this beautiful thing somehow survived an epic cataclysm...worth so much more than its literal weight in gold...rich in history...enduring.

For these reasons he now wants Rick to have it. For his birthday, which it will be very soon, Dave notes as he eagerly checks his watch once more. He's glad for the opportunity to present himself at Rick's door come the stroke of midnight, and nervously fretting that he might be turned away without a kiss due to the presence of Roger's entourage. He wants more than a kiss, and doesn't care who knows it. Rick's insistence on secrecy can be deeply frustrating, no matter how reasonable.

Another frustration has been Rick's timidity. In a professional capacity, it often manifests as a terror of fucking up, and Dave has noted it seems to extend to Rick's romantic realm as well. Knowing that Rick had previous experience with another man had made Dave expect some instructive initiative, but although his ardent affection is abundantly apparent he seems content to serve and not to speak. Dave has sought Rick's wishes, but in doing so has learned his sensitive friend doesn't like being put on the proverbial spot.

Well, he's been figuring things out on his own his whole life, and considers he must be doing fairly fine with Rick if the sublimely exciting reactions are any indication. Dave's enjoyed many worshipful women, but none have displayed such passionate, trembling, overwhelmed desire as what he's elicited from Rick, often with the merest touch. It makes him feel like a god.

Tonight, he intends to kneel. He'd asked Rick to teach him, but the lesson had never been offered. He's paid attention, though, and believes he can manage...if his Richard will have him.

Rick paces his bedroom floor, cigarette in hand wafting idle clefs into the air, trying to muster interest in joining the party. It IS his birthday, after all (or will be...he glances at the clock...in five minutes), but it's such a Roger crowd playing poolside...pretentious political pricks pretending to have half a clue what He's talking about.

Dave is with them...maybe they could slip away...Ohhh, best not to even THINK about that...as if he could help it, now. If he went out there feeling like he does, though, Roger would be sure to take note of them both, especially if Dave were to give him that LOOK...the one that proves adoring appetites are marvelously mutual. It's so hard to hide, but Rick can't deny (to himself, anyway...he's unsure how he'd manage to admit if Dave were to ask) that their affair's clandestine nature is part of the thrill for him. To be sure, he fears ridicule or unwelcome intrusion, but he also gets off on having a wonderfully wanton secret nobody would expect from "the quiet one".

A soft triple-tap upon his door sets Rick's heart to racing. Roger is almost always two rough raps and Nick is given to shave-and-a-haircut riffs. Nobody else would BE knocking at midnight...crushing out his smoke, he hurries to answer, hoping to behold...

Dave's smile sparkling in dim light from the hallway, eyes wide blue beauty as he proclaims "Happy Birthday, Richard."

"I love you." Rick whispers as Dave steps across the threshold to offer bold embrace, hands slipping around Rick's waist.

"Everybody's outside." he assures as Rick's arms rise to wrap around him "We can say it louder. I love you." Dave impulsively steals a kiss right in the open doorway.

"Dave, are you crazy?" Rick pulls him into the room and closes the door behind them, and the next kiss is freely, feverishly given.

"Not anymore." Dave avows "But I WAS, waiting for midnight so I could be the first to share many happy returns." 

"I was dreaming of you when you knocked." Rick confesses to kindling now ignited by sweet spark of Dave's devotion, fanned into flame as both bodies begin burning from friction.

There it is...that achingly delicate tremble Dave finds so strongly stirring. He's learned, and longs for, how Rick melts under his touch, which he now applies with gentle pressure of one palm against Rick's erection and considerably firmer crush of his lips upon those parting to receive his questing tongue. Discerning Rick's weakening knees, Dave wishes he were certain of strength to literally sweep him off his feet, but settles instead for leading him toward the bed, breaking the kiss to beg "Please, Richard, let ME show YOU this time..." as he sinks slowly to the floor before his beloved.

Rick doubts he's lived a virtuous enough life to have died and gone to a Heaven so glorious, so this fallen angel at his feet must be real... luscious-lipped azure adoration aglitter, pleading to please him...all he can utter is "Yes."

Dave deftly opens Rick's trousers to smoothly slide them down before returning both hands to cup firmly with one and stroke lightly with the other. Having learned of Rick's splendid sensitivity upon previous occasions to handle this instrument, he plays gently and carefully indeed, rapt at radiant response. Although keen to attempt Rick's reed, he feels compelled to ask "Can you stand?"

Rick can barely breathe, but gasps out "Probably not."

Dave grips one pant-leg, urging "Step out." and Rick leans a heavy hand on his shoulder to obey before sitting down on the mattress behind him, thighs on either side of Dave's head bare and quivering. Rick knows he may well fall backward soon, but that he must emblazon the first sight of beloved bandmate's magnificent mouth upon him...those same lips that are now hotly breathing "I love you."

"Show me." Rick whispers, and Dave gladly gives himself to that temptingly tender task.


	10. Act I, Scene 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our favorite jazzcat gets many happy returns...

"You'd better BACK OFF, Long, Tall and Ugly!"

Nick's voice carries from what sounds to be the kitchen as Rick exits his bedroom. He's not surprised to hear fighting words first thing upon awakening, but it's uncommon for Nick to be the one yelling (or to be throwing into Roger's hearing the epithet they often use out of it). What fresh hell is THIS? Rick sighs, but also can't suppress a small, secret smile to recall how sweetly he'd been sent to sleep after last night's incredible interlude with Dave. At least his birthday had STARTED nicely...

"Give me the knife..." Roger commands "...and get out of my way."

"The hell I WILL!" snaps Nick "You lay one Frankenstein-y finger on that before Rick sees it, things'll get nasty."

Sounds as if they already are. Rick resists the urge to flee and heads instead toward the commotion, wondering how HIS name's being dragged into this and what it might be Nick wants him to see.

"Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster." Roger coolly corrects.

"I MEANT the doctor, you mad, tinkering, God-playing maniac!" Nick shouts "But I guess you do LOOK like his vile, lurching creation!"

The scene confronting Rick in the kitchen halts him, horrorstruck, at the threshold where carpet turns to tile, which is splashed and splattered with wet, red drops. Roger's back is to him, facing Nick, who wears an expression of grim determination and grips the handle of a large butcher's knife, blade flashing wickedly in the morning sunlight. Incongruously, as Nick spies Rick in the doorway, his face transforms to a cheery, welcoming grin.

"Oh, hey, g'morning. Happy Birthday."

Roger turns around, clearly noting the direction of Rick's terrified gaze, and bursts into madcap laughter, which is even scarier than the blood and the blade. Have they both finally snapped? 

"It's just food dye." Roger cackles "Don't faint. Nobody's cut."

Nick takes in the look on Rick's face, then surveys guise of gore, laying the knife down upon the table as he, too, begins laughing uproariously, explaining through giggles. "Greedyguts here was trying to pinch a slice of your cake before I'd even finished decorating it...ran out of pink...spilled the bottle before I could make more." He points an accusing finger at Roger, both men still laughing "Now I CAN'T...you've spoiled the surprise."

"I'm plenty surprised." Rick avows, stepping into the kitchen to behold the cake at issue. Frosted in fluffy white icing, the space between piped pink words "HAPPY" and "RICK" shows where Nick's labors had left off. "Oh, Nick..." Rick trails into silence, overcome with strangely morphing emotions, initial anxiety and shock giving way to truly touched gratitude. Not only had Nick spent all morning handcrafting homemade confection, he'd also valiantly defended it from Roger's marauding molestation, neither of which Rick would've ever expected from the mellow drummer, and both of which he knows to be beyond his own abilities.

Feelings continue to shift, and Rick now senses bandmates' merry mirth becoming contagious. As laughter looms in his throat, he points at the cake and declares "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces!"

What the hell is going on out there? Dave arises from his bed and begins to dress, marveling at the uncharacteristic three-part harmony of hilarity. Whatever they're on sounds like fun, and he wants in. Picking up then pulling on the jeans he'd worn last night, he notes a heavy hardness in one front pocket, remembering with relish how...and why...he'd forgotten to give Rick the treasured token. The birthday surprise he HAD offered had been so wonderfully well-received that the golden gift had completely slipped his mind.

If he keeps thinking about THAT, he'll be unable to close the zipper...which he manages with some degree of reluctance, resisting an urge to lie back down and replay highlights of their thrilling midnight show. Lovely as fantasy and memory can be, his real Richard is out there, and sounds very happy. Even if he can't kiss him, he can still join his joy.

Barefoot and a bit bleary, Dave shuffles slowly down the hall, hearing high, hysterical hints to their howls and wondering if they could be drunk this early. No...even if they WERE, they wouldn't all sound the same like they do now. [Roger never seems to GET drunk, no matter how much he puts away, Nick tells dirty jokes when he's had a few too many and if Rick were tipsy he'd far more likely be singing than laughing.] 

First sight upon rounding the corner is Roger's rangy frame bent nearly double, palms on knobby knees, hair obscuring His face, uttering not His habitual arch cackle but an unusually unrestrained sound somewhere between bark and bray. No sooner does Dave's shadow darken His periphery than He stands abruptly upright, suddenly silent, sharp sight raking Dave's drowsy dishabille as he ambles into the kitchen. Nick and Rick both brace against opposite sides of the table, still too mired in mirth to notice him until his guileless inquiry.

"What's so funny?"

Rick can't remember when he'd last laughed so helplessly hard, and somehow seeing his dear Dave cast as the unwitting straight man makes the whole silly Thing even funnier. All he can manage is "It's NOT what it looks like!"

This sets Roger off again, literally knee-slapping. "It's EXACTLY what it looks like!"

Dave has no clue what "it" may or may not look like, or what they might've taken to be seeing something he's obviously missing, but decides that if he had to wake up in a nuthouse at least it's a jolly one. Although he's trodden through several small, scarlet spatters, he has not noticed. He DOES, however, note the source of sweet smell. Walking around the table, he pats Rick's shoulder (wishing he weren't limited to such a casual, comradely gesture of affection) before sitting down in the chair beside him, reading aloud the pink letters as a question.

"Happy, Rick?"

Dave's placid presence helps Rick get his hilarity under control, but he's still beaming broadly to proclaim "Yes! Can you believe Nick baked this for me?", eyeing the cake to keep his hungry gaze from devouring Dave, moving a few feet away to claim a chair for himself.

"It might be absolute rubbish." Nick humbly demurs as he also takes a seat, chortling to pick up the big knife, which he waves jauntily in Roger's direction. "C'mon, let's all choke on it together."

Roger surveys the sight of the three of them seated, then, without a word, stalks briskly away. Rick wishes His departure didn't deject, but it does. [Why can't we ever ALL enjoy the same thing at the same time?] Oh, well...

"Fine, BE that way." Nick calls behind Roger's retreating back. "More for us." He proffers the handle toward Rick, asking "You wanna do the honors?"

"It's almost too pretty to cut." Rick smiles "I couldn't...but I DO want a piece. You go ahead, you made it."

Long blade neatly bisects round cake in the empty space where the word "BIRTHDAY" was meant to be, and as Nick cuts into edge of "HAPPY" Roger strides back into the room bearing an exquisitely wrapped flat package. Thrusting it out at Rick, He turns toward the cabinets after it leaves His hands, cracking open doors and drawers with rummaging rattles.

Rick examines the gift while Roger's back is turned. Glossy paper of midnight blue tied with silver satin ribbon, evoking moonbeams in night sky. Object within is obviously a book...a big, heavy one...probably some pompous tome on some obscure subject he'll have to pretend he cares about. He's actually far more pleased Roger's come back to share cake than about whatever damn homework He's deigned to bestow.

[Why do fiercely intelligent friends always seem to give gifts that showcase what THEY want you to have rather than what you Really Want?]

After carefully untying the ribbon, Rick's still turning the pretty package around and around in his hands, searching for a flap in seemingly seamless wrap, when Roger unceremoniously clatters a stack of cutlery atop four plates onto tabletop next to Dave.

"Make yourself useful."

Dave eschews his customary contrary glare and obeys, dealing forks and plates out like a poker hand around the table while remaining seated. Roger returns after another foray with a carton of milk in one hand and four glasses held together by the rims between long fingers of the other.

"Oh, just tear it." Roger brusquely snaps, softening with indulgent smile as He sets the first glass before Rick, sliding one each to Nick and Dave then beginning to pour in the same order, precisely equal measures in each glass, emptying the carton into His own. "Ripping open birthday present is a lovely sound." He sits down, appearing eager for Rick's reaction as Nick begins to set slices before bandmates.

Rick himself isn't too fond of the sound of shredding paper and, much like with Nick's cake, is loath to crack the sweet surface, but knows well Roger likes all sorts of brutal noises (bullhorns, bombs, breaking bottles), so happily takes direction. Preparation for pretended pleasure becomes genuine puzzlement as paper falls away to reveal a cover entirely black and blank. The volume is both deep and wide, beautifully bound in buttery leather which Rick strokes in a single sensual sweep before cracking it open to see what the hell it IS...Creamy ragbond pages are all blank, too, and Rick suddenly understands.

"Oh, Roger..." he impulsively clutches the gorgeously generous gift to his chest "...it's beautiful."

"It might be." Roger regards him levelly "Maybe you'll show it to me when it is. Now eat your cake so I can eat mine."

Rick's throat feels almost too tight to swallow. Roger cares what HE might write, Nick slaved over hot oven and Dave...Oh, Dave...had begun his birthday so beautifully. THIS is what he's really wanted, everybody getting along, although the gifts are lovely, too. He lays Roger's...HIS...fine folio on an empty chair and takes a deep drink of cold milk before a forkful of frosting.

Once multiple mouths've momentarily masticated, Nick fishes. "Hope it's all right. Haven't done a cake in years."

Roger scrutinizes his slice, commenting "Aeration's a bit inconsistent between top and bottom layer. Must've done them separately."

"Shut up, Roger!" bursts from Rick's lips, and he struggles to make it a joke "Never seen YOU bake a cake."

Wonder of wonders, Roger inclines his head toward Nick. "Sorry. Rick's right. Cheers, Nick, it's delicious. I didn't even know we had butter and eggs in the house."

"Yeah, thanks." echoes Dave with his mouth full. [Did Rick just tell Roger to shut up?] "I didn't even know butter and eggs GO in a cake." As a congenial chuckle circulates, he remembers the golden gift residing in his pocket. "Richard..." escapes, and he hopes the formal form won't seem too untoward in company this once "...I have something, too." Rick's eyes raise to meet his, and he dares "I meant to give it to you last night, but I forgot."

Rick watches Dave withdraw a closed fist to hold it out above the table, clearly waiting for Rick to open his hand beneath it, which he does with eager anticipation. [Don't let Dave be crazy enough for it to be a ring.] What drops into his palm feels far heavier than something small enough to be concealed within Dave's should, and as he draws it in to look sees it's a worn, weathered coin.

"Thought you might like a souvenir from Pompeii."

Rick's thumb caresses the glorious gold, still warm from contact with Dave's hot body. What a perfect, talismanic gift...fraught with implication...something he can carry in his own pocket...or kiss...whenever he's unable to make contact with Dave.

"What is it?" Nick cranes for a gander, holding out his own hand "Lemme see."

Rick tips tangible treasure into Nick's palm while whispering to Dave. "Thank you."

"Wow, Rick, this's real gold...and real old." Nick teases "Careful, he might be tryin' to buy your love."

Rick knows if Roger had said that it would've come out snidely sneery, but from Nick it allows him to respond unselfconsciously. "Sold. I love you..." He says boldly into Dave's face, turning to regard both Nick and Roger in turn, including them in sincere declaration "...all."


	11. Act I, Scene 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This Thing is now officially a bodice-ripper...

Rick slams the door behind him hard enough to shiver small window in its frame, thumbing button at knob's center to engage the lock. It would be just like Roger to follow him, looking to land some final cut under the guise of conciliatory concession, and Rick's righteous indignation is such that he feels no jury could convict him if he KILLED the bastard for "I'm sorry, but..." or "The point I was trying to make...". Dave's due here soon, but Rick prays he's running late (as usual) and can still be literally caught napping. Rick stomps toward the desk to pick up the phone, dialing the number he's committed to memory...the line connected in Dave's bedroom.

[PLEASE let him answer...please.]

Dave tries to ignore shrill telephone bell, but a glance at the clock shows he's expected at the studio in a little less time than it'll take him to drive there. Damn Roger, always riding herd like a fucking sheepdog...

Rick is about to dejectedly disconnect after seven rings when Dave finally picks up with an irate snap "I'm on my way, all right? Don't get your knickers in a knot, you giant jackass!"

"YOUR knickers'll be ripped right off your tight little backside if you EVER talk to me like that again..." Dave is surprised not only to hear Rick's voice rather than Roger's, but also the curtly commanding tone "...if you're WEARING any."

Rick can't believe he just said that, but apparently dear Dave isn't offended because his reply is apologetically abased. "I'm sorry, Richard. You KNOW who I thought it was. I'll be there, soon, okay?"

"NO!" Rick's adamant admonition astonishes "I'll be THERE soon. Get out of your dirty bed, get rid of anybody who might be in it with you and go wait for me in MINE."

Dave's never heard Rick sound like this, and although it's powerfully arousing it's also slightly strange. "Richard..." he tries "...is something wrong?"

"Yes." Rick admits "But you can help..." he lowers his voice "...if you love me."

"Anything..." Dave promises as he has before, infinitely preferring intimate session with Rick in bed rather than irritating one with Roger in studio. "What should I tell Him? He'll pitch a fit if I don't come."

"You WILL come..." Rick's decadent, determined declaration shocks them both "...just not HERE. To hell with Him. He can wait. I can't. Now get naked and go to my room. I love you." He hangs up without waiting for an answer.

"I love you..." Dave whispers to a dead line, disbelieving this difference as he replaces the receiver and lies back down, drifting drowsily into dreams of awaiting ardor.

... ... ...

Rick flings open his bedroom door to behold his neatly made bed as lonely as he'd left it. Oh, he KNEW he'd pushed his luck. How could he have been so presumptuous...so brutally bossy? Although deeming he deserves desertion, he allows faint hope that might not be the case...maybe lovely lazybones just fell back asleep. Leaving his own door open, he crosses the hall to Dave's, resolving that he won't knock either way. If it's locked, he'll turn around and depart, but if not...

Dave abruptly awakens at a soft touch. Rick stands beside his bed, one hand caressing his sleepy head, a look of sorrowful reproach on his face as he murmurs "You didn't listen. Nobody EVER listens to me..."

"Oh, Richard..." Dave feels horrible to have disappointed with disobedience. Rick never asks for anything, and the first time he has he's been denied his desire. "Please forgive me." He strives for sweetest smile, opening arms invitingly. "Let me make it up to you?"

Rick is immediately in Dave's bed and his eager embrace, relief to not be rejected nearly overwhelming previous prurient plan. "I thought you didn't want me..." he confesses as his hands twist tightly into the fabric of Dave's shirt to drag down the neckline so he can trail burning kisses from the taut cords of throat, onto hard lines of clavicles, down onto the flat plane of breastbone...still not enough...he pulls harder, exposing skin inch by inch as the well-worn cotton stretches then splits with a purring shred.

[Oh, no...oh YES...]

Dave gasps in shock as Rick rips his shirt down the front, then moans to feel hot hands beneath the tatters. "I always want you..."

Rick has often imagined tearing off Dave's clothes, but can scarcely believe his own boldness in finally doing so. Well, he's asked after Rick's fantasies...now he's going to see one. Rick takes hold of the waistband of Dave's jeans, knowing denim won't yield so easily, but with a sharply snapping tug manages to pop off the button and break open the zipper, laying bare the hard evidence he's not the only one enjoying such forceful disrobing.

Dave cries out quietly to feel Rick's fingers, so harsh upon his garments, turn so gentle upon his flesh. "Yes, Richard...ohhh...please."

Rick remembers what he wants from Dave this time...and he means to have it. He pulls away and sits up to survey the sight of bandmate's beautiful body amidst the ruin wrought upon his clothes. "Please what?"

Dave tries to imagine what the hell could've gotten into his habitually timid beloved, but decides he'd rather escalation than explanation right now. "Please touch me." 

Rick reaches down to offer the lightest of strokes across Dave's brow, smoothing silken strands off his face to fan out upon the pillow. He traces lips and lids, lingers along lobes, eliciting a shiver and a sigh as fingertips brush bristled jawline. Dave raises arms to wrap around Rick, trying to pull him back down, but is denied with a firm palm upon his chest and a single stern word.

"Wait."

Dave is confused at this mad game of green-light/red-light so very unlike Rick. "Why?"

"Because I said so." Blunt words are softened by a gentle, almost apologetic smile right back in character as the hand on his chest begins to caress. "You keep asking what I want..." Rick looks deeply into his eyes "...and now I'm telling you. I want you to relax and let me touch you...however I want...for as LONG as I want..." He bends down to whisper in Dave's ear "...until you're begging me."

"I'm begging you now." Dave pleads prettily, but Rick remains resolute.

"Not yet, you're not...but you will...let me show you." He wants tatters of soft cotton to stay on, loving the way his gorgeous god wears rags he himself has rent, but slides the distressed denim down Dave's legs and off over his feet to slither into a heap onto the floor, running his hands back up along bared thighs, barely brushing between them first with fingertips followed by loving lips and lightest of licks before Rick sits back up to study Dave's face.

Teasing touches are torrid torments as Rick's fingers flicker faintly but fondly across fevered flesh. "Richard..." Dave groans "...you're torturing me."

"No." says Rick mildly "Torture would be stopping altogether and telling you it's time to go do some work." He takes his hands away. "Maybe you'd rather be in the studio."

Dave turns beseeching blue eyes up to his lover. "Please don't stop...please. Nobody could work...like this."

"I do." Rick tells him with solemn sincerity, relenting with return of tender touch. "I've played whole shows...like this."

Dave can't imagine, but does not disbelieve. "Was Syd really that cruel?"

"Sometimes..." Rick allows, continuing delicately demure devotions "...but you've done it, too, Dave."

"No...?" Dave is beginning to writhe under maddeningly moderate ministrations. He's never teased Rick on purpose, but has he done so unintentionally? "When?"

"Last week." Rick remembers how Dave had pulled him into shadowed stairwell backstage at that funky arthouse gig to entwine tongues between merged mouths, holding him close for a few stolen minutes before they were due to perform, and he now gives a more intimate squeeze than he'd dared to offer then.

Dave's broken into a light sheen of sweat, and his respiration grows ragged. Last week? "But that was barely..." he trails off, unsure what he means to say, so distracted with sweet sensation. Barely a minute? Barely a kiss? "Barely" suddenly seems an inappropriate word for anything he's shared with Rick, and he realizes he's trembling...just like Rick had been in his arms before their last show. He hadn't known that enticing quiver he finds so flattering was indicative of such desperate desire. Poor, passionate Richard...how can he stand it? Dave resolves to no longer take his lover's longing lust lightly, finally comprehending the wide well of want he's unwittingly left uncapped and afire each time he's walked away after striking the spark.

Countenance agleam with awareness, Dave whispers "I'm not as strong as you."

After events which drove him here to seek Dave's solace, no words could be more perfect to overshadow them. Rick turns loose his gentle grip then lies down to strip out of the confining constraint of his pants. He takes Dave's hair in both hands and draws those moistly parted lips against his own for a few blissful beats before indicating the downward direction he wants them to go.

"Be strong for me now."

Dave moves into position to place Richard's pleasure above his burning torment, but as he opens his mouth to accommodate Rick's hardened headstock he's unable to resist wrapping fingers around his own, finally finding friction and pressure Rick's featherlight fondling had teasingly denied. 

Rick's begun crooning his name in that manner evocative of diminishing echo "DAVE-Dave-dave..." and as repetitions rise in volume and pick up tempo so increases the speed of Dave's stroke. He knows he must wait for his Richard, but, ohhhh, he isn't sure he can. Thrilling thrum of Dave's moan around him moves Rick to warbling wails as his trembles turn to thrusts. Molten mouthful courses across Dave's tongue as his own eruption spews forth hot streams upon the sheets.

Once twin volcanoes at last lie dormant, Dave slides up to take Rick into his still-quivering arms. "Wanna tell me where THAT came from?"

Rick toys with tatters of Dave's shirt as his racing heart slows. The whole horrid Thing seems so stupid now, but he guesses Dave deserves an explanation. "I got in a royal row with Roger. He called me a pussy, and..." he sighs, kissing Dave softly before admitting "...I sort of had to prove it wasn't true. I just couldn't stand the though of Him having you in there all night...before I did." The habitual anxiety is back in his face and voice as he says softly "Sorry if I went too far." he offers a shy grin "I'll buy you a new pair of Levis."

"I'll let you." Dave laughs "Those were broken in just the way I like them, but..." he rains a flurry of kisses upon Rick's face "...I love the way you broke them." He regards Rick earnestly "Thank you for showing me what you want. That was...you were...unbelievable."

[Thanks, Roger.]


	12. Act I, Scene 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave deploys the magic word...

"Dave, sometimes I think you WANT us to get caught."

Rick squirts another palmful of coconut-scented suntan oil, transferring slick substance to his lover's already slippery skin, savoring this occasion for languid, leisurely rubdown. These are his favorite interludes, precious few, when they can be alone and at liberty to bask in banked embers following initial incendiary impetus. Time enough remains not only for repeated rekindling but also for the rare respite of sweetly shared slumber before whoever awakens first blows upon the glowing coals to stir the hearth anew.

"I don't." Dave defends drowsily, blissfully besotted beneath Rick's masterful massage, wondering if he'd rather a nap or a happy ending. "That's why we're here."

Sometimes, when the suite in which they've arranged an ardent assignation is an especially sumptuous one such as this, Dave enjoys the fantasy that they're a honeymoon couple, no cares but each other, and wonders if his Richard would be touched or terrified to know that. Dispelling deliciously domestic daydream, Rick scolds softly while continuing to glide greased fingers across Dave's chest and shoulders.

"Finally...We've sure been everywhere ELSE, wicked thing. You're getting too reckless."

"You love it." Dave tenderly teases, expression shifting to solemn sympathy as he discerns distress. "Don't you?"

Rick isn't sure how to say this, but knows he must. "I love YOU...so much...but sometimes you scare me with these dangerous games."

"Dangerous?" Dave is perplexed. "How have I scared you?"

"You're cutting it too close. Somebody's GOING to walk in on us one day if you don't watch out..." Rick frets, adding quietly "...and you don't listen when I say 'no'."

The first part of that is debatable, but the second is worrisome, indeed. "We haven't done anything you didn't want, have we?"

"Not exactly, but..." Rick struggles for the right words.

Dave tries to help him, although he's still not sure how he might've made his beloved feel pressured or forced. "When did you say 'no'?"

Rick remembers the first time. "The car park..."

["Dave...ohhh...Dave, you have to stop that."

"Why? Don't you like it?"

"I like it TOO much..."

"Well, then, that means I SHOULDN'T stop."

"You can't...not HERE..."

"I CAN...I want to. Please, Richard, won't you let me show you?"

"Ohhh, yes...just like that...yes...aaaahh...DAVEDavedave..."]

"I guess you did say 'stop', but then you said 'yes'." Dave recalls, gazing fondly up at Rick "You said it a few times."

"Maybe..." Rick allows, not too certain WHAT he might've uttered between initial resistance and incredible release "...but I was still really nervous."

"I was, too." Dave admits "First time I'd ever done that...except for, y'know, private practice." He shamelessly fishes "Was I good?"

"You're always amazing." Savoring chance to stroke Dave's ego and body simultaneously, Rick nonetheless recollects another edgy encounter. "The studio stairwell scared me silly...ANYbody could've followed us..."

["He'd BETTER not follow us! I swear, I'll smack that ugly face if He comes through that door!"

"We can barricade it. Come here...we're stronger together...mmm...see? Now nobody can get in."

"Dave, are you crazy? That's the last thing on my mind."

"Is it really?"

"Well...not NOW...ohhh...Dave, DON'T!"

"Please, Richard...you're so tense...I can help."

"...yesssss..."]

"You went back to work with a smile." Dave reminds him with one of his own.

Rick can't deny that, but... "What about last time, when you stole my bandanna? That was madness! Roger was literally right around the corner."

["Dave! Give that BACK."

"Come and GET it. Have to catch me first..."

"Okay, now you're cornered. No place left to run. Hand it over. I need it to keep the sweat out of my eyes. It's hot out there."

"You're hot in here...chased me right into a trap...now I'm gonna lock the door so you can't escape."

"Quit screwin' around. There isn't time..."

"I wish we WERE screwing around...want your sweat in MY eyes...dripping onto my naked body..."

"Later. C'mon, it's time to go."

"There REALLY won't be time later. We'll be mobbed after the show. Please, Richard, I can't wait to touch you...like this..."

"Stop, Dave..."

"If I stop NOW, you'll be tortured, and I'll feel bad. Please let me make you feel good."

"Wish I'd never told you that..."

"Shh. I'm glad you did. Now I know how much you need it...There's time if you just relax...mmmm...You do want me, don't you?"

"Yessss...oh, Dave...you're so sweet to me...yesyes...ohhh..."

"I love you, Richard."

"DAVEDavedave...uh..uhh...ahhhhh..."

"I told you there was time."

"I love you, naughty boy. Can I have my scarf back, now?"

"No. It's got all sticky...much hotter than sweat. I'm going to take it out there with me. Look over when you start to sing, and watch me put it to my lips. I'll be wishing my mouth were on YOU instead."

Two rough raps and two warning words startle them both as Roger bangs on the door. "Five minutes!"]

"Weren't YOU scared when He knocked?" Rick asks, still kneading Dave's warmly well-oiled flesh. "I though for SURE He knew...What would you have SAID if He'd still been standing there when we came out?"

"I'd have said it was drugs...that we'd sneaked off to get high." Dave declares dismissively.

"Why would we hide THAT?"

"Why do we hide THIS?" escapes in a sharp retort, which Dave immediately regrets. "I'm sorry, Richard. I know why..." he takes one of Rick's hands in both of his, entwining slippery fingers as he confesses confusion. "What I DON'T know is why you feel like I haven't listened." Dave's been using beseeching big, blue eyes and a pretty "please" to get laid since youth, and isn't sure what, if anything, he's done wrong by deploying the same tactics toward Rick's wavering reluctance whenever they're not quite alone. "I thought I've been making you happy. You don't really feel like I've...pushed you, do you?"

Realizing his own mistake, Rick relents. "Not really. You just..." he sighs "...overwhelm me, sometimes. I KNOW it's dangerous, but I lose all resolve when you touch me...when you say 'please' I can't refuse...and don't want to."

"Should I stop trying...anything...unless we're in private?" Dave quietly inquires "It'll be hard...I never stop wanting to find even a minute to kiss you...and more...but I never want you to feel like you can't say 'no', either. I don't want to think that you're afraid...during...or that you regret it...after."

"Oh, Dave..." Rick leans down to bestow a gentle kiss before drawing back to regard him sincerely "I never regret anything we've shared, and if I'm scared...well, that's MY fault, not yours. You DO make me happy, and I worry..." this is difficult, but Dave deserves honesty "...that because I don't have the nerve to make a move unless we're totally alone...like now...that I'm not doing enough to make YOU happy."

"I know you worry." Dave says softly "I wish you didn't...so much...but please don't worry about THAT. I love finding...MAKING...time to show you how wonderful it is to please you. I feel so powerful when you give in to my wicked wishes...so loved."

"You are." Rick avows, tremor of lust creeping into his voice "What are your wicked wishes right now?"

Dave releases his lover's hand with a playful grin. "I want you to trade me places and give me that bottle." Rick hands it over, lying down while Dave sits up, perusing the label. "I love this stuff. It smells terrific, and it's SO slick." He uncaps it for a sniff, arching a teasing eyebrow. "Think I've smelled it on you before. Do you ever use it...by yourself?"

"Yeah..." Rick admits, adding "...thinking about you."

"I need to get some." Dave decides "I think it'd be better than the lotion I use...when I'm thinking about YOU."

"Roger prob'ly uses thirty-weight." bursts from Rick's lips in an unbidden quip, shocking Dave into merry mirth.

"Nah, Tiger Balm. He likes the burn." Dave giggles, and Rick joins him in deliciously bitchy titter. "How the hell did Roger's dick get into this?"

Rick suddenly stops laughing. "I hope I NEVER hear you say those words again."


	13. Act I, Scene 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More has been fanfictionalized about these events than any other single event in Floyd history, so knew I'd have to get there myself. Have been deliberately vague regarding RTF's timeline, but to any who feel this is out of order (chronologically or thematically) I say "It's a soap opera, not a documentary."

"What the fuck is he doing here?"

Roger's gaze rakes Nick, Rick and Dave in turn as He angrily thumps one boot heel against the freshly-locked door at His back.

Rick quails, sure bandmates believe it's somehow his fault. [They all KNOW...]

Dave glares, vexed Roger had rather obviously herded them all in for a family meeting. [Now we HAVE to do something...couldn't just ignore him?]

Nick folds his arms and taps his foot.

"Well, I tell you what he's NOT doing." Roger declares "Staying." No word of protest is raised. "He's an embarrassment, and we need to work." Eagle eyes sweep sharply, searching assent. "Agreed?"

Nick throws up his hands and huffs "Not it!", turning his back and heading toward his kit in one corner, where he proceeds to sit down and pick up sticks, trilling out rainfall riffs on ride, clearly wanting no part of further discussion.

"All right, then." says Roger briskly, as if the matter's been decided. "If I do it Syd will cry, and if Rick does it HE will cry. You're up, Dave. Go tell your little chum it's time to go home. He can't stay for supper."

Dave opens his mouth to object, but a glance into Richard's anguished, swimming eyes moves him far more than Roger's marching orders ever could. He HAS known Syd the longest, after all, and yet somehow has the least emotional investment. He IS the only one who can [maybe] manage it without tirade or tears.

"Okay." Dave agrees, resisting burning urge to reach out and reassure his obviously distraught beloved, levelling firm forefinger at Roger instead. "Don't let anybody else in until I come back."

"Don't come back until he's gone." Intense insinuation infuses Roger's final say on the subject. "I don't care WHAT you have to do, just go do it NOW."

Rick blushes. Dave does not. Continuing to point at Roger, he matches arch tone and raises his voice to ring above Nick's noises, wanting this on the proverbial record before they resume recording their latest literal one. "You're gonna OWE me for this." Sweeping fingertip to include Rick and Nick, Dave proclaims "ALL of you."

Nick ignores him, tickticking away on the hi-hat, although Dave detects recognition. [He fucking heard me.]

Striving to live up to dear Dave's brave example, lest he be lost in looming lachrymose labyrinth, Rick displays a small, sincere smile and a steady nod of acquiescence. [Anything...he knows that.]

"Yesyes." Roger cleaves to leering intonation. "A pound of flesh, to be collected at your command. I've no doubt you'll never let me forget it."

[Bet He'd back down right quick if I DID try to claim THAT sort of payment...wait, No!...but what if...?] Dave gives his head a short, sharp shake. Crazy might be contagious, after all... "You couldn't SPARE a pound of flesh." he retorts, turning on his heel to unlock the door, walking out and shutting it behind him before whispering cruel quip to an empty hallway "But Syd sure could."

Dave's departure deflates Rick's defenses, but he won't let it demolish them...he WON'T let Roger see him cry. Slinking along recording room's perimeter, Rick determines he'll do what Nick's doing...tries to make eye contact communicating commiseration, but Nick's eyes remain either rolled back or half-lidded each time Rick seeks rapport. Sitting down at baby grand, Rick initially attempts to sync with Nick's screwloose, freeform syncopation but finds himself helplessly hammering...scrabbling along in manner he himself has described as 'rats in the piano'.

Out of the corner of his watering eye, Rick spies Roger has followed, stopping to stand midway between two percussive players both pretending not to see Him. [Oh, WHY can't He leave me alone?] Rick refuses to look up into the face he's sure will be either critical or patronizing...those are His only two expressions...but he can no longer maintain motions of musical manipulation with the toes of Roger's boots pointing his way, stepping even closer until directly beside the bench. [What does He WANT?]

Fingers of one slightly trembling hand curl into frustrated fist, which Rick bangs down onto the keyboard in a last-ditch effort to forestall further fervent display, maybe even get through to Long, Tall and Ugly that mocking him for this desperate distress would be a very bad idea, indeed. [I'll hit Him if He laughs...I WILL...smug scarecrow prob'ly won't even see it coming.] Before discordant reverberation fades, those gnarled knuckles enter Rick's blurry field of vison and Roger's hand settles gently onto his forearm midway between wrist and elbow, the sound drifting down from above unmistakably a strangled sob.

Too shocked to shake off the contact, Rick tries to recollect whether, in all their long association, Roger has EVER deliberately laid a hand on him before now. He's never seen their baleful bane cry [Didn't know he COULD.], but as he turns his face up it's revealed Roger's mute misery matches his own, tracks of tears from uncharacteristically clouded eyes in some utterly unforeseen way seeming to grant permission for Rick's sorrow to show...to share...and he unselfconsciously allows Roger to behold brim become overflow in a rare and raw breach of barrier.

Odd as it is that Roger's reached out to him physically, Rick is downright floored that he now seems to be doing so emotionally. Crying makes everybody ugly, but it's somehow doing the opposite for the features Rick has grown to regard with fear and loathing, softening the harshly alien landscape of Roger's vicious visage into something almost human. The hand on his arm neither pats nor grips, merely warmly rests, slight sporadic quivers transferred from Roger's hitching shoulders.

"I get it." Roger chokes, and with those three simple syllables, Rick suddenly does, too.

[He cares about Syd...and about me.] Roger had always treated Syd like a naughty puppy, spoken of him like a pain in the arse and dealt with him like a bratty child, but Rick sees now He HAD been trying...maybe more than anybody else...and that sad sight of the wreck He'd failed to fix washed up on studio shores today is generating genuine pain. Rick has spent so much anxiety agonizing over what Roger might know (or do with said knowledge) that he's never given a moment's thought to how He might feel. [He's not a monster...not a machine...after all.]

Delegating duty to Dave hadn't been a power play, but a mercy for all concerned. Calm, considerate, deft Dave won't hurt Syd, and Syd CAN'T depress Dave. Rick had been terrified Syd might try to get him alone [I couldn't have refused him...even now.], and it was Roger who'd spared such suffering. Seeing shattered shell of his former flame had been torture enough, but enduring private reminder of previous passion would have cut him into little pieces. 

Rick's tears had heavily threatened and fiercely fallen like a brief summer cloudburst, but now he feels them abate as he notes that Roger's still flow freely. This incredible reversal imbues him with strange strength, although any attempt at assurance might present as pale platitude, and all that seems safe is an echo of simple understanding.

"I know." 

* * *

"Ooh, rather close quarters in here, David." Syd teases as Dave closes the door to the small interior office behind them (there is a lock, but Dave does not engage it). "Are we playing Seven Minutes In Heaven like we used to?"

[That would make Roger God.] Dave never did have much patience for Syd's silly, sexualized japes, and now snaps irritably "We never played that game, and we aren't starting now."

"You never WERE much fun, and I guess you're not starting now." When Syd pouts, a fleeting flicker of the incandescent imp gleams through the fleshy fiend he's become. "Fine, then. Send in Richard. I KNOW he'll play."

Dave shifts from snap to snarl. "I will NOT let you pull this crazy shit on Richard. Don't you think...do you even CARE how much you've hurt him already?"

"Oh..." Syd seems to swiftly suss far more than was said. "It's like THAT now, is it?"

"That's right." interjects without inhibition. Dave has hidden his heart from everybody else at Rick's request, but at this point cannot deny their truth. [And so WHAT if Syd says so...he didn't ever really radiate reliability, and sure as fuck doesn't now.]

Syd sighs sorrowfully. "Took my place in the band, and in the bed..."

Dave regards him stonily, unmoved, declaring dispassionately. "I'm better at both."

Syd appears to accept this. "Well, if you're too jealous to let us be alone, can I at least give you a message for him?"

"Okay."

"You have to promise." Syd insists, bringing back memories.

"I promise, all right?" Dave curbs his wrath and modulates his temper. "Now what is it?"

"This..." Syd closes his eyes and moves closer.

Dave sees it coming in plenty of time to have avoided the contact of Syd's lips, but allows and in some weird way welcomes the kiss, determined to memorize the message down to minutest detail, so as to provide excuse for insisting Rick steal away with him tonight. He'll pass on Syd's, then replace it with his own, and even if his Richard does weep Dave has learned ways to sweetly soothe such sadness...it's been too long...He looks forward to any reason for reconnection. Syd's hands raise to roughly grip his shoulders as his tongue slides somewhat sloppily between their lips, and Dave permits both, although the sensation contrasts almost repulsively with the tender delicacy he's come to know from Rick.

Dave had not once desired to kiss Syd, but Rick obviously liked something about it...what? Not entirely unbidden, he finds himself responding with faint, hesitant touch of his own tongue, realizing he's imagining things from Rick's perspective as he begins to deliberately emulate the manner in which Rick gives himself to intimate insistence, leaning slightly into Syd's embrace but not reaching to return it. [If I were shy...and lonesome...this might seem like love.]

Syd draws back and opens his eyes with a low, whistling exhalation. "Damn, David. " He lets go and steps away, proclaiming "I should've tried YOU years ago."

"You did." Dave reminds him. "It never got you anywhere."

"So, why now?" Syd asks as Dave steps around him toward the door.

"I didn't want you then, and I don't now. That was for Richard."

Syd smiles sadly. "You will give it to him, then?"

Dave opens the door, motioning for Syd to exit ahead of him. "Yes."

"I'm being bounced, aren't I?" Syd stands his ground.

Dave will not sugarcoat. "This isn't a party. We've got work to do, and you weren't invited. Don't even know how you got in."

"Why don't you have Roger do his own dirty work?" Sys sneers "HE told you to throw me out, didn't he? Did he tell you to kiss me, too?"

Dave's at the end of his rope. "If you Really Want to have this out with Roger, I WILL go get Him."

[Three, two, one...]

"Don't." Syd quickly decides. "He might literally toss me out on my arse."

[That's what I THOUGHT.]

Syd sidles past Dave and looks back coquettishly. "But you'll walk me to the door like a gentleman, won't you, David?"

Dave doesn't answer, but proceeds to do so, the two of them wending without word through corridors until reaching the final portal that opens into unforgiving evening.

"Take care, Syd." is Dave's final farewell.

"YOU take care..." Syd says softly "...of Richard."


	14. Act I, Scene 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Message delivered and unexpectedly received...

"Have you decided what I'm gonna owe you?" Rick asks quietly, lips against Dave's hair and arms wrapped around the warm, firm form pressed tightly against his own. They'd tumbled into bed as rapidly as usual, but this time their kisses had so far remained chaste and their embrace subdued. Although both individually incline toward further ardor, each remains worried the day's events have dampened the other's desire. "What's your pound of flesh from me?"

Dave raises his head from Rick's chest to delve his beloved's expression, which somehow seems less troubled than he'd anticipated. "Oh, Richard..." he assures "I didn't mean that. You don't owe me anything." [I WILL lord it over Nick and Roger, though.]

"I do." Rick implores, needing Dave to know how deeply intrepid intervention is appreciated. "You were so brave. Nobody but you could've done it without there being...a scene." Hint of heat infuses his next words "I WANT to pay up...to reward you. I'll give you whatever you want."

Much as Dave would love to take advantage of that enticingly open offer, it wouldn't be right. Syd's 'message' has been preying on his conscience, and although he's resolved it must be delivered he remains anxious as to how it will be received. Not to mention...Dave sighs, supposing he'll confess THIS first. "You already paid. Please don't hate me, but..." He takes a deep breath "I told him about us."

Far from fear or anger Dave had expected, Rick regards him with calm fondness, asking only "How much?"

"Just that we're together...and in love." Dave admits, recalling that while those words hadn't been specifically spoken, such had been the general gist. "He didn't ask any more."

"Would you have told him...details...if he HAD?" Rick's prurient pry surprises them both. He's never wanted Dave to discuss their affair, but now can't help wondering what he'd have to say about it if he did.

"Probably not." Dave decides, unable to make it a flat 'no'. He is an exhibitionist, but... "None of his business."

"How did he take it?" [Did he call me a slut?] Rick has never experienced being the apex of a love triangle before, and although this isn't exactly that, he nonetheless feels flattered to have two men (sort of) fighting over him. ["Get out, you cad, he's MINE now."...ohhh...] "Did he cry? Call me...or you...nasty names?"

"No..." The uncharacteristically nervous, almost evasive manner in which Dave draws out that single word convinces Rick SOMETHING interesting had gone down.

"What DID he say?"

Rick isn't going to like this, but Dave HAD promised, after all, and he considers that a promise to Syd might not mean much but that one FOR Richard carries a lot of weight, indeed. "He gave me a message for you."

"Tell me..." Rick girds for a guilt trip, encouraging dear Dave to neither gloss nor gild. "...EXACTLY the way he told you."

He asked for it..."Okay. Come here." Dave sits up, swinging his legs off the bed before taking Rick's hands to pull him along as they both slowly stand. "We were in that tiny little office with no window...you know the one."

Rick does, from furtive fumbles with both Syd and Dave. [Damn, I AM a slut.]

Releasing Rick's hands, Dave backs off a step, trying to get into character. [He wants it EXACTLY...] "He asked...well, demanded...to talk to you instead of me, but I wouldn't let him." In retrospect, that seems pretty presumptuously possessive. "Did you WANT to see him...alone?"

Rick shudders "I didn't want to see him at ALL." he reaches up to reassuringly caress Dave's worried face "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." Dave warns warily "You might want to hit me in a minute..."

"Never." Rick avows with a small smile, adding "Shooting the messenger is stupid. What did he want you to give me?"

Dave licks his lips, recalling the wet sensation of Syd's . " 'This..' ." he quotes, closing his eyes as Syd had before leaning in blind to initiate the kiss he's sure will shock his sensitive Richard. 

Eyes also tightly shut, Rick startles at how insistent intrusion of tongue combines with rough, sudden seize of shoulders to powerfully evoke the memory of former flame's fierce embrace...so different from Dave's tender touch he has to draw away and stare in wide wonder. 

Expecting admonishment or anguish, Dave can't quite believe Rick's look of awestruck arousal. "That IS exactly how...What happened next?"

"Nothing..." Dave insists "I told him to leave and walked him out myself to make sure he did."

"Did you kiss back?" Rick wants to know.

"A little..." Dave cautiously acknowledges [Is he getting off on this?] "...but I was thinking about you the whole time."

Incredibly, Rick looses light, lascivious laugh. "Sure you were."

"I WAS." Dave protests, emboldened and excited enough by how well this is going to offer more "I was sort of...pretending to be you...kissing him like you kiss me." Rick gives an audible gasp at that, and Dave feels compelled to defend "But only for a few seconds, and only because I was wondering what you liked about it...with him."

[He wanted to be ME?] "Show me again. I want to see how you think I kiss." Rick isn't sure if he's begging or commanding. "This time I'll be him and you do exactly what YOU did." It's his turn to take Dave into far firmer grasp than ever before and to mash his mouth aggressively, almost crudely against Dave's impassioned inhalation, striving to recreate Syd's signature slippery swirl.

[What the fuck, Rick? Still, this is WAY better than tears or scolding...but if I screw it up he'll think I'm making fun of him. Must be what he feels like all the time...so afraid of doing something wrong.] As he had with Syd, Dave delicately flickers tongue in tentative touches against the intimate invasion as Rick pulls him closer in a rough manner he wouldn't have allowed from Syd (but he doesn't doubt it's consistent with what he WOULD have done if offered the slightest encouragement), and which is absolutely thrilling coming from his habitually reserved Richard. Rather than his usual throaty growl, he affects instead a soft, warbling moan, resisting the impulse to smoothly slide arms around Rick as he normally would, raising only one hand to lightly slip fingers along the back of Rick's neck beneath his hair. [Sets me reeling when he touches me that way.]

Rick recognizes his own gentle gestures and responds with another bold, pawing one of Syd's. Kneading both cheeks of Dave's gorgeously taut backside, he crushes their hips together in a fevered thrust, gloriously gratified it seems Dave's enjoying this game as much as he is. [Can I talk dirty like Syd?] Leaving one hand in a tight grip where it is, he brings the other around for a firm squeeze in front, breaking their kiss to display what he hopes is a wicked smile. "Look what you have for me." He leans in and runs out his tongue for a long lick up the side of Dave's neck, stopping at his ear, into which he whispers "Did you have it for him, too?"

[Okay, what's going on here?] "Richard..." Dave somewhat reluctantly pulls away enough to look into his lover's face, feeling a strange blend of confusion and lust "...none of...THIS...happened, and I didn't want it to...with him." He stammers, uncertain how to phrase next words "But I have wanted you to tell me...or show me...how it was for YOU. Is that...what you're doing now?"

"Is it awful?" Rick blushes and looks away. "I'm sorry. I'll stop."

"No!" Dave blurts, answering hesitantly "I just want you to know I'm not pretending you're him...even if YOU are. Does that make any sense?"

"What's it like pretending to be ME?" [Nothing about this makes any sense, but it's so hot...]

"A little scary..." Dave tells him plainly "I don't want you to think I'm getting you wrong."

"Well, I AM scared a lot." Rick admits "But I'm not right now. I couldn't say...much...when you asked about how it was, but I think I can show you...if you really want."

"Yes!" Dave's enthusiasm is ardently apparent "If you don't do anything YOU wouldn't like, I'm sure I'll like it, too."

[Let's see about that...] Rick's reply is to tackle Dave backward onto the bed, pouncing playfully atop as Syd had often done to him, leaning down to nip lightly at flesh of throat while sliding both hands beneath his shirt, shoving it up to expose more skin beneath sharper bites. 

Dave cries out in surprise. Rick has never bitten before [Neither have I, but I might NOW...that I know he likes it.], but although it was initially shocking it's not at all unpleasant. Rick's teeth close tightly but very briefly each time, moving on to another spot before becoming painful, leaving echoing prickles in each newly vacated location until Dave's whole chest feels alight with lines of fire and his breathing has become hoarse panting. Ragged gasps give way to groans as Rick shifts from teeth to tongue, tracing teasing tracks between his nipples, taking each in turn to apply soft suction with eager lips. [Whoa, that's new, too. mmmm. He has the most magnificent mouth.]

Rick slides downward for a better view of engorged erection overtly outlined alongside the fly of Dave's twill trousers. [I'm lucky he's not wearing Levis...for once.] What he has in mind might be too difficult through denim. Starting with slow strokes, he begins to alternate with slight squeezes, well aware Dave prefers a firmer touch than he himself enjoys but not letting him have it...yet. Lowering his face to rub one cheek along entire length, Rick opens his mouth over the rounded bulge of tip to force a long, hot breath through strained cloth, delighting in Dave's deep quiver and yearning growl.

"Richard, please..." Dave brings his fingers to the top button of his pants, but Rick covers them with his own and gently pushes them away, prompting a frustrated sound not quite a whimper. "PLEASE." he repeats, more urgently this time, knowing Rick's reluctance to refuse the magic word.

[Not this time. He can wait...until he can't.] Rick desires to render Dave an incoherent mess, then subsequently a sticky one, like has so often happened to him. Syd had done it on purpose, as intentionally as he's now tormenting dear Dave, seeming to derive salacious, sadistic satisfaction with which Rick now strangely sympathizes. He doesn't believe Dave had ever meant to be cruel [At least he never mocked...after...like Syd used to, and I won't either], just hadn't understood the power of his own overwhelming overstimulation. Rick means to show him now what it's like to be helpless beneath another's torrid touch.

Dave can scarcely hear his own cries over the roaring rush of blood in his ears. Rick's grip has tightened and his pace quickened, provoking him to beg one more time "I can't stand it."

"Does that mean you want me to stop?" Rick lets go and moves to pull away, but Dave desperately drags his hand back.

"NonoNO..." Dave babbles, burning "...pleasepleasePLEASE...let me out...can't take any more."

[I'M taking it...whether he likes it or not.] "You're going to GIVE it to me...right now. Aren't you?"

"Yes...yes...mmmm...now...NOW." Dave arches against Rick's grasp, too overcome with wracking spasms for forming further words. 

Drunk on the heady reversal of remaining in control while Dave sublimely surrenders to his wanton wishes, Rick isn't sure whether he's more intensely intoxicated by blissful, blazing beauty upon beloved features or by heated spurts soaking into fabric under his fingers. Climbing back atop Dave's quaking form, Rick props himself up to gaze down at flushed face, eagerly awaiting what expression will be revealed upon opening of exquisite eyes and what words will first flow from lush lips.

"I love you." Firework flashes continue to explode behind Dave's closed lids as he gasps the only syllables he can manage. [Is this how Syd...how I've...made him feel? Teased and weak, at the mercy of aggressive desire?] Rick bends to kiss him, and Dave gladly gleans he's reassumed customary tender delicacy. He doubts his Richard will make a habit of such aberrant behavior, considering that possibly he'd needed catharsis to exorcise Syd's horrid haunt. Maybe they're not quite done yet...

Giving a slight squirm beneath Rick's weight, Dave discerns rampant rigidity pressed against him and opens imploring eyes to plead prettily "Will you let me out NOW, Richard? I'm somewhat..." [very] "... sticky."

Rick rolls off and pulls Dave over to face him, both men reaching for the other's waistbands simultaneously. Rick allows Dave to strip him naked while he returns the favor, but calls a hold when fond fingers fondle stiffened shaft. "Wait..."

Dave doesn't let go, but stays his hand. "You don't want me to?"

"Not stop..." Rick breathes "...just wait." He's unaccustomed to this role, and wants it to last a little longer, which it...he...certainly won't if Dave has his wicked way. [He probably thinks I'm crazy now.] "That wasn't...I wasn't...too weird for you?"

Entwining nude limbs to deepen embrace, Dave grins guilelessly, suggesting "I might like to play some more, actually." 

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you showed me how he...treated...you. Could you show me something he wanted FROM you...after that?"

Rick buries his face into his lover's hair, but knows Dave couldn't have missed it turning bright red. "His favorite thing was...something we don't do." he murmurs, disbelieving ability to utter even that much.

Dave has often wondered if...that...was ever going to come up, and had, in fact, obliquely fished for information, but Rick didn't ever seem inclined to share. This is the first occasion he's even acknowledged the experience, and Dave hopes to keep him talking. "Is it something you liked?"

Rick almost replies with evasive 'Sometimes.', but realizes that would imply there were times he didn't. Since he can't recall any, he answers only "Yes." 

Although Dave is sure it's easier for Rick to discuss this while hidden against his neck, he needs eye contact for the next question. Turning onto his back, he levers Rick on top of him, parting thighs for Rick's hips to slip between them as he looks up into his beloved's blushing face. "Even...the first time?"

"Yeah." Rick admits with a shaky sigh, adding "More than I thought I would."

"Will you show me?" Dave quietly invites.

Aflame at Dave's incredible proposition, Rick bestows burning kiss before drawing back to regretfully deny. "I want to...but not while we're playing a game...not THIS game." He can't bear the thought of their first foray into unfamiliar level of intimacy having ANYthing to do with Syd.

"I didn't think we were still playing." Dave regards him steadfastly, resisting impulse to deploy another pretty 'please', certain if he does Rick will be unable to refuse. He can hear his Richard's urgent desire in quavering voice, feel it in firm press of flesh and see it in smoldering eyes, but also senses some somber sensibilities prohibiting proceeding.

"We are." Rick decides. "I'll show you something else he liked...from me...if you want to try."

"Anything." Dave ardently agrees.

Rick warns "It's kind of hard."

"So are you." Dave sparkles sweetly "Please let me help with that."

"Put some pillows under your head." Rick instructs. [Sometimes Syd hadn't permitted him that luxury.]

Dave complies, but can't suppress a curious "Why?"

"Because without them you might choke." Rick shyly shares "I did...sometimes."

[Choke? What have I gotten myself into?] Dave gets the idea as Rick moves up to sit on his chest, weight leaning onto knees indenting the mattress beside his shoulders, effectively pinning his arms to his sides and bringing Rick's erection within inches of his face.

"Open up." Rick tells him "And hold still." Twining fingers into Dave's long locks, he clarifies "You can move your mouth...and your tongue...but don't move your head...or anything else. I'm driving, okay?"

"Show me." are Dave's final words of eager assent before Rick slides himself between moistly parted lips.

Engulfed in the hot cavern of Dave's beautiful mouth, Rick softly moans his beloved's name while slipping back and forth along the length of silken tongue. Syd had taken him like this many times, but he's never experienced the top spot himself (although he has often dreamed of trying it on Dave before now). His arousal has been intense since beginning this game, and crashing crescendo creeps closer with each spectacular stroke.

[Wow, he wasn't kidding. Awkward angle isn't easy.] Dave struggles to avoid accidental scrape of teeth or inadvertent gag as pace of Rick's penetration quickens and deepens, but true test arrives along with shuddering thrusts bearing heavy load. He's swallowed...some...with Richard before, but finds as eruptions flood his throat that this difficult position leaves no choice but to take it all. [I can't...]

Dave sputters and coughs as Rick withdraws, worried. [Knew I might choke him, but couldn't stop...] "I'm sorry." He releases Dave's hair, dismounting his body to lie down heavily beside it, greedy gaze on gasping, glistening lips. "Are you all right?"

"I tried..." Dave's voice is hoarse but his smile is sincere "It was just...too much." He reaches to reassure with affectionate embrace and ardent avowal "I'll do better next time."

[He wants a 'next time'? Ohhh, he's so good to me...for me.] "You're always amazing." He knows he's said that before, but is sure Dave never minds hearing it again, along with "I love you."

[That's the first time he's said THAT this whole time. Must be back to normal.] Dave echoes sweet sentiment, musing that this mad game has taught him far more about his Richard's deeper desires than ever elicited by euphemistic interrogation, and that he's very pleased to have played. "Speaking of next time..." Dave doesn't want to embarrass Rick all over again, but frets if he doesn't say something now it might never be mentioned again. "That...other thing...you didn't show me...I still want to...if you do."

"We'll talk about it." Rick promises "Just not today." [Soon, though...I hope.]

Dave knows, as with other indelicate intimacies, he'll most likely have to be the one to bring it up...but he will. He's disappointed at Rick's demure demurral, but also somewhat relieved. [I was ready...I WAS...how long until I am again?] At least it's finally on the proverbial table, no longer a looming question mark, migrated from the forbidding realm of 'something we don't do' to the unexplored territory of 'something we haven't done yet.'

"As you wish, Richard."


	15. Act I, Scene 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirty Dave's dirty dream....

The women range widely in age and appearance, some looking like schoolgirls he'd teased at recess and others resembling kindly old ladies who'd tossed a few coins his way during breadline-and-less busking, but all are naked. All have perfect tits, too...dreams are amazing like that. Dave keens his way through soaring solo of "Dogs" before entire front row of panting bitches in heat for him, realizing he's just as nude but that this is no anxiety manifestation. He's pleased...ecstatic...to be publically exposed. Cock rock-hard, he knows every set of lips he sees would eagerly enfold him, but the partner he seeks is across the stage, not in front of it.

"I love you." Dave utters clearly into microphone, Roger bowing gracefully out of sightline so Rick's face comes into view, gloriously receiving his amplified declaration.

Longingly lathered ladies take up like Greek chorus, watching him while he watches Richard, echoing "Love you...love you...love you..." 

Rick leans into mic above keyboards, crooning his name, and fevered female front row mimics "DAVEDavedave...DAVEDavedave..."

Dave casts away his guitar, opening bare arms to command "Come to me."

"To me..." from blushing maid

"To me..." says saucy, buxom wench.

"To ME..." pleads his former teacher...buttoned-down matron who'd been so strict...now licking lascivious lips.

Dave somehow sees them all, yet has eyes only for Rick. His resplendent Richard crosses the stage, clothes slowly melting away as he approaches, stiffened prick pressing against Dave's own erection as their tongues entwine. Roger sways in slow semicircle around them, casting admiring, approving eyes, and suddenly it's no longer Rick's tongue in his mouth but his cock.

"You two are so beautiful." Roger proclaims while Dave proceeds to demonstrate newly acquired talents.

"Beautiful..." Rick moans as Dave kneels in front of him, greedily sucking.

"Beautiful...beautiful...beautiful...." wafts in sensual susurration from amorous audience.

Roger continues to play "Dogs" bassline while offering sincere praise. "Apparently you CAN master unfamiliar skills quickly, after all. Look how fast you got so good."

"So good..." Rick sighs, fingers twining into his hair, trembling thrusts driving dick deeper.

"So good...so good...so good." Infuses his ears from myriad throats as Rick's cum floods his mouth. He usually can't taste in dreams, but in this one savors creamy flavor as well as ardent adulation. 

[I AM so good! EVERBODY knows it.]

Now there's a bed, a lushly appointed four-poster with billowing drapery, upon which Rick reclines, begging "Take me, Dave."

A good friend's wife implores "Take me..."

"Take me..." seduces chum's mum.

Dave plunges himself into Rick's warm, waiting, willing tightness, looking into his beloved's besotted face, crying "YES!"

"YES!" Rick echoes. "I love you!"

"YESYesyes...loveyouloveyouLOVEyou..." wail wanton women.

"Yes." Roger pronounces solemnly, smiling with beatific benevolence upon Dave finally fucking fondest friend. "Love you both...you're perfect...together. You should do this every night."

"Every night...EVERY night...EVERY NIGHT!" The escalating chant throbs in his head in time with pulse of prick as he gives every inch...every drop...deep inside.

Dave gasps awake, still spurting. He's had a few erotic dreams about Rick of late, but none have ended quite like THIS. As his heartrate slows and the intense images fade, he wonders if he would dare share with Richard what his steamy subconscious has wickedly wrought.


	16. Act I, Scene 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Richard's nasty nightmare...

"How can you stand it with Rick?" Roger sneers, pushing Dave to his knees.

"He asked me to call him Riiiichaaard." Dave draws out the name into a mocking simper, provoking harsh bark of laughter from above.

"Bet THAT's hard to manage with a straight face."

Dave gazes worshipfully up at Roger to state "NOTHING about him is hard...not like you. He's the easiest piece EVER."

"He's totally beneath you." Roger opines, twining fierce fingers into Dave's lovely locks to pull him closer.

"I know..." Dave agrees with a rueful sigh "...but I need SOMETHING to do when I can't be beneath YOU."

Roger's words are harsh but his tone is fond as he admonishes "You're as big a slut as he is...getting down with two blokes in the same band."

"How do you know I don't put out for Nick, too?" Dave teases. "Or that I didn't for Syd?"

"I don't..." Roger declares "...nor do I particularly CARE, as long as you're available whenever AYE want you. Now suck my cock."

Dave proceeds to passionately obey, eager lips slipping along lean length. Roger displays no sign of pleasure, only scornful scrutiny, before Dave draws back from lascivious labors to share "Richard likes me to DO it, but he never TELLS me to the way you do." he gives a small smirk "I don't think I've heard him say the word 'suck' OR 'cock' even once."

"What DOES he say?" 

"Well, he says 'I love you' a lot." Dave rolls big blue eyes "It's all I can do not to laugh when I say it back so he'll suck MY cock."

"Is his prick as pitifully pathetic as his personality and his piano playing?"

"Not sure..." Dave muses mirthfully "Nothing he lets me do with it ever lasts very long."

Roger grins wickedly to inquire "Only fucks you for a few seconds, hmm? Just enough to be a tease, never enough to get you off?"

"He doesn't fuck me AT ALL." Dave complains, standing up and turning around, bending over to grip the armrests of nearby chair. "He won't even TALK about it."

Roger approaches offered arse to kick Dave's feet further apart, proclaiming "He probably CAN'T."

"You're probably right." Dave concurs "You always are." he peers provocatively back over one shoulder to implore "You'll give it to me now, won't you?"

"First you have to beg." Roger coldly commands "How much do you want me?"

"More than anything..." emerges in wanton whimper "Please, Roger. It's your stiff shaft I think about whenever I'm with him...or anybody. PleasepleasePLEASE fuck me...can't wait."

"Very well, pretty Pig." Roger allows "I'll take you like the dirty animal you are...and you'll thank me for it."

"I will..." Dave promises, Roger roughly gripping his hips to powerfully penetrate. Ecstatic moans are broken into staccato sighs as Dave gasps out with each thrust. "Thank you...need you...love you."

Both heads turn in unison to behold Rick watching from the doorway, expressions neither surprised nor abashed to see him standing in silent shock at salacious spectacle.

"Aren't you going to run away?" Roger taunts, rapaciously reading Rick's reaction while continuing to drive deeply into Dave.

Rick would, but finds himself unable to move or speak, wretchedly rooted in mute misery.

"Perhaps you've come for instruction?" Roger snidely suggests "Spot of practical example?"

"Yeah, stick around, Richard." Dave smiles, arching against Roger's malevolent ministrations as Rick bursts into bitter sobs. "You might learn something...if you can stop crying like a little bitch and pay attention to how a REAL man acts."

"NO!" Rick howls, sitting bolt upright in tangled sheets damp with cold sweat, hot tears coursing down his flushed face. As nasty nightmare gives way to lonesome darkness, he's unsure if he'd truly shouted aloud that last desperate denial and hopes he hasn't awoken or alerted anybody to his hellishly horrified humiliation.

It had seemed so real...every debauched detail cruelly clear...but dear Dave would never...NEVER...Would he? Rick suddenly shudders to contemplate that their ardent affair might have been the dream (certainly one he'd often enjoyed before romantic reality), that Dave has not in life given him a single kiss and his yet-unspoken love remains unrequited. Frantic fingers scrabble beneath his pillow, heart hammering and nearly breaking as he gropes for something that isn't there before he remembers...prays...that it's still in his pocket. Leaning over the edge of his bed to snatch up discarded trousers, a grateful groan escapes as touch discerns then trembling hand fishes out beautiful beloved's golden gift.

[He does love me...he DOES...it was only a nightmare.] 

"I love you." Rick quietly murmurs, fervently kissing treasured talisman, wondering if he dares arise to seek greater comfort from the man himself.

[I couldn't...what would I SAY? Creeping into his bed because a bad dream scared me? That's not '...how a REAL man acts.']

Although he's...mostly...certain wounding words were mere manifestation of his own fears and in no way indicative of how his gentle, generous lover might really feel, Rick nonetheless realizes he'd have a hard time uttering the language necessary to describe dire disturbance, deciding he needs to privately practice the vulgarities. Clutching coin tightly in one hand, lying back down to take himself in the other, he closes his eyes and imagines bright, brave blue ones winsomely watching...waiting.

"Suck my cock, Dave." Rick whispers, displacing nightmare with daydream.


	17. Act I, Scene 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick is not himself, and Dave is not amused...

"Ow, quit it!" Dave yelps.

Rick's been acting weird this whole session, and although Dave has gamely tried to roll with his beloved's unusual behavior he's getting a bit freaked out. The coarse language, heavy handling and almost brutal kisses hadn't been all bad, but the hair-pulling fucking HURTS.

"Richard, you're starting to scare me."

Rick does not release fistful of mane, pull turning to push as he drives Dave's face into the pillow and answers with uncharacteristic bite. "Bullshit. NOTHING scares YOU."

Maybe he's not exactly afraid, but Dave IS extremely confused...and he's starting to lose his erection. This does not seem to be a problem shared by Rick, whose rigid length has been a firm pressure since he'd pinned Dave facedown onto the mattress. Twisting painfully within Rick's grip as he cranes his neck to look backward, he snaps "Let GO!" more harshly than he'd intended.

Rick turns loose his locks but continues to hold him down, wearing a blazing, manic expression that prompts Dave to probe "Are you on something?"

"I'm on YOU." Rick growls in oddly lowered yet strangely strained voice.

[He asked for it last time, but I didn't...If I don't show him I CAN, he'll find somebody else...if he hasn't already.] "Gonna be IN you..." Rick deeply desires described action, but has to force himself to utter wicked words as he slides a hand beneath Dave's hip, seeking the button of his jeans. "Want me to fuck you hard?"

[All right, that's it. Has he lost his goddamn mind?] Dave thrashes under Rick's weight, bucking him off with an emphatic "No!"

Vehemence of Dave's denial nearly flings Rick from the bed, and he sits upon its edge, too mortified and horrorstruck for any response except quietly questing echo of rejection. "No?" [I waited too long...he doesn't want me anymore...mustn't cry...CAN'T...If I do, he'll laugh, and that might kill me.]

"No." Dave repeats, more gently this time, rolling over to regard Rick's obvious anguish and feeling mildly like an ass to discover he prefers woefully welling eyes to lewdly lunatic leer of a moment before. "Who are you, and what have you done with my sweet, tender Richard?" He inquires, only half in jest, hoping for explanation.

"I'm sorry, Dave." Rick manages, barely above a whisper "Do you want me to leave?" [So you can call a REAL man to do better?]

"Of course not." Dave insists, reaching to pull Rick back down beside him. "What I want is for you to tell me what's wrong. You haven't been yourself since you got here, and I'm worried."

Rick melts gratefully into Dave's embrace, feeling overspill escape tightly closed lids but able to stifle sniffle and suppress sob. He wishes he could share distressing details of recent nasty nightmare, but knows there's no way. [How awful if he were disgusted...How much worse if he's NOT...what if it gives him...ideas?] "You've liked it a few times when I wasn't...quite...myself."

Dave supposes that's true, recollecting tattered clothes and torrid choke, but... "That was different. You wanted it."

"You think I don't want..." [I can't even SAY it.] "...you now? Dave, I DO!" Rick's voice spirals into plaintive wail.

[Oh, hell...] "That's not what I meant." Dave touches lips briefly to Rick's quivering ones before shifting back to avow "I know you do." He draws Rick's head down against his chest, aware this will be easier for his distraught sweetheart without eye contact. "It's just, well, today you've seemed like..." [Galahad miscast as Mordred...can't say THAT.] "...you're trying too hard to be something you DON'T want. You were almost being...mean..." he takes a deep breath, inhaling slightly sweaty scent of hair he's softly smoothing while saying what he must "...and I didn't like it. I wasn't saying no to...what you wanted...but I wasn't happy with the way you said it, or with how rough you touched me, and I don't think you were, either. When you...we...do that, I need it to be gentle and loving...like you. Okay?"

[He said "...when..."! He still wants to! ohhhh...] Rick feverishly kisses along Dave's jawline, apologizing afresh between traces of lips across bristled flesh "I'm sorry...wasn't trying to be mean...thought you wanted me to act...stronger." 

"Richard, you ARE strong." Dave needs him to hear, even if he might not believe. "You were strong enough to love Syd, more than any of us could, without going crazy yourself. You're strong enough to keep your temper when Roger's being the world's biggest bastard...wish I could...and you were strong enough to straight out tell me you loved me, which let me be strong enough to fall in love with you."

Emboldened by sincere sentiment, Rick turns his eyes up to meet Dave's steady gaze. "When DID you fall in love with me?"

Dave recalls the precise minute, but warns "You might not like it..."

"Why?" Rick asks gravely "Were you with somebody else?"

"Yeah..." Dave sighs.

Rick isn't sure he wants the answer, but asks anyway. "Who?"

"I don't know..." Dave blushes to admit indiscriminate interlude "Can't even remember what she looked like. All I could think about was how much I'd rather be with you." His erection's returned with a vengeance, and he presses closer, wanting Rick to feel how hard he's grown to remember. "It was the night after we kissed at the piano, when you drove me wild then pushed me away."

Rick opens his mouth to protest that he hadn't pushed, but if that's how Dave sees it..."Did I really drive you wild? I was too nervous to do...anything."

"Something tells me we could've worked that out..." Dave takes Rick's hand and guides it to stroke stiffness straining against his zipper. "...if we hadn't been so rudely interrupted."

"You didn't want to stop, even though..." [Roger] "...everybody was about to walk in?" Rick shyly inquires.

"No, I didn't." Dave proclaims "I wanted to keep kissing you in front of everybody." [He might not like this, either, but...] "I still do. Sometimes I want to kiss you in front of a sold-out stadium...to say I love you in front of the whole world."

[That almost doesn't sound so bad...but, no, we couldn't...] "You're a shameless show-off." Rick fondly pronounces.

"Goes with the territory." grins Dave, deciding to share "I even had a dream about it last week."

"What kind of dream?"

Dave brings lips to Rick's ear to whisper "The wet kind.", thrilling to feel Rick's impassioned tremble and behold breath of gratified gasp.

"Really? About kissing me in front of...an audience?"

"Well...we were doing more than that." He's beginning to squirm under Rick's tender touch, and isn't sure he can keep talking about this with his pants on.

Rick's finding concupiscent confession incredibly exciting, and burns for details. [He has naughty dreams about me...wants me even when we're apart.] "How much more? Who was watching? Did they want an encore?"

"Are you sure you want to know? It's kind of dirty..." [He can't say I didn't warn him...]

"So are you, Dave." Rick teases with a smile and a squeeze. "Tell me HOW dirty."


	18. Act I, Scene 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fraught false start becomes jolly family singalong...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are VERY old public-domain songs nobody's sure who wrote, so can't credit composers. I've been singing them lustily (sometimes drunkenly) for decades, and thought it would be fun to deploy them here.

"Aboard the Good Ship Venus  
My God, you should have seen us  
The figurehead was a whore in bed   
And the masthead was a penis!"

"What the fuck...?" Dave is in no position to make any sudden moves but his attention is nonetheless abruptly arrested by strident singing sailing in from the front door and wafting through the closed one of Rick's bedroom.

"The captain was Carrother  
He wept to leave his mother  
He wasn't fit to shovel shit   
From one place to another!"

"That's Nick..." Rick's fingers halt in their gentle, slippery exploration but do not withdraw. [Ohhh, he's so tight...there's no way I'll be able to last...don't think he'll mind, though, especially if I offer to trade places...after.]

"The first mate's name was Morgan  
By God, he was a gorgon  
Ten times a day he'd stop to play  
With his reproductive organ!"

A second voice joins, provoking a muted mewl of dismay before Rick moves to pull away with frustrated whisper "...and Roger."

"Don't stop." Dave softly implores "They won't come in here...but I want you to."

"The second mate was Hooper  
By God, he was a trooper  
He jerked and jerked until he worked  
Himself into a stupor!"

"Dave, they sound plastered." Rick hisses anxiously, sliding slowly and carefully out. "Who knows WHAT they'll do?"

"The bosun's name was Andy  
By God, he had a dandy  
They crushed his cock upon a rock  
For coming in the brandy!"

"They can do each OTHER for all I care." Dave sighs, wondering if those words conjure the same image in Rick's mind that they have in his.

"The trip it was exciting  
Our pleasures were inviting  
All day we blew, all night we'd screw  
BY ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING!"

Raucous ribaldry reverberates into merry mirth, Dave's murmur masked in bandmates' loud, lewd laughter. "They'll stagger off to bed now..." [Certainly not together?] "...and we can finish what we started." 

Rick doubts that, as vociferous voices head not down the hallway of bedchambers but into the rehearsal room, and anyway..."Even if they DO, His room is right next door. I don't think we could be quiet enough."

"Yes we could." Dave insists "You're so good a being quiet..." he rolls over to clasp Rick's bare body close against his own slightly slick nakedness, offering a heated kiss before fond flattery "...almost as good as you are at turning me on. I just know you're going to be so good at...this, too." [Not that I have any basis for comparison, but...] "Please, Richard, don't make me wait." 

Rick longs to relent, still scarcely able to believe beautiful bliss of beloved's ardent acquiescence, trembling within tender touch, but as he reaches for the bottle of oil beside them on the sheets a crashing cascade of chords curtails consummation.

"In the harems of Egypt no infidels see  
The women yet fairer than fair  
But the fairest, a Greek, was owned by a sheik  
Called Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

Roger has found the piano and begun another dirty song, singing more loudly and lustily than He usually does, vulgar verses carrying clearly.

"A travelling brothel came into the town  
Run by a pimp from afar  
So great was its fame that well-known was the name  
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."

"He's shitfaced." Rick surmises in a tone resembling wonder, which Dave echoes.

"I've never seen Him drunk." marvels Dave.

"Abdul the Bulbul arrived with his bride  
A prize whose eyes shone like a star  
He claimed he could prong more cunts with his dong  
Than Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."

"I have..." recalls Rick "...once."

"Was it awful?" Dave inquires, almost hoping for occasion to console.

"A great fucking contest was set for the day  
A visit was planned by the czar  
And the curbs were all lined with harlots reclined  
In honor of Ivan Skavar."

"No..." Rick unexpectedly chortles in revelatory recollection "...it was actually kind of fun. I think He sang this same song."

"They met at the track with their tools hanging slack  
Dressed only in shoes and a leer  
Both were fast on the rise, but they gasped at the size  
Of Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

"More fun than THIS?" Dave slides nearer, slick thighs slipping alongside Rick's stiffness. "You can't possibly want to stop NOW."

Rick gasps at delicious friction. "Of course not, but, Dave..." Face buried in the flesh of his lover's throat, he runs out tongue to lap salty sweat before whispering into eager ear. "...you can't possibly want to continue with..."

"They worked through the night till the dawn's early light  
The clamor was heard from afar  
The multitudes came to applaud the ball game  
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar."

"...THAT going on." Rick isn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Dave is used to tuning Roger out. "I wouldn't be hearing it."

"The cunts were all shorn and no rubbers adorned  
The prongs of the pimp and the peer  
But the pimp's steady stroke all the chances soon broke  
Of Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

"Well, I WOULD." Rick has no choice but to admit Roger's effectively killed the mood, if not exactly dampened the desire.

[Damn Him...] "All right..." Dave decides "...I'll go tell them to shut up, make them go to bed, and then I'll come back." He sits up and reaches down to the floor for his castoff Levis. "At least it's only the two of them and they didn't bring home a goddamn circus."

"When Ivan had finished he turned to the Greek  
And laughed when she shook with great fear  
She swallowed his pride; he buggered the bride  
Of Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

[This has potential to end badly.] "You don't know that." Rick warns, loath to mention but inclined to remind... "Roger has a way of...muting...His playmates. There could be silent..." [naked] "...ladies out there in collar and chain."

Dave almost asks if Rick would like him to capture them a willing, wanton woman to share, barely biting back salacious suggestion as he wriggles into his jeans. "I don't care." he declares, leaning back down for another kiss before standing up and wondering if he need bother with a shirt. "Don't worry..." [Know he WILL...] "...and don't finish without me." [He might...mmmm...better make it fast...]

[Guess I can't stop him.] "Close the door VERY quietly, okay?" Rick advises as Dave pads to open it. [Even drunk, He's not stupid.]

Dave complies, casting final loving glance back upon Rick naked in bed before shutting the door to shuffle barefoot and barechested down the hall, rounding the corner to espy Nick draped head-down over the arm of an easy chair and Roger banging away at baby grand. Nobody here but family...

"When Ivan was done and was wiping his gun  
He bent down to polish his gear  
He felt up his ass a hard pecker pass  
'Twas Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

Roger sees him before Nick does, eyes narrowing and posture stiffening as if daring confrontation while singing the next verse.

"Now the crowds looking on proclaimed who had won  
They were ordered to part by the czar  
But fast were they jammed. The pecker was crammed  
In Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."

"Oh, hey..." Nick offers convivially "...sorry if we woke you up."

"Yeah, well, are you about fucking finished?" Dave growls in Roger's direction, who switches from jolly pool-hall belting to lecturing recitative.

"Now the cream of the joke when apart they were broke  
Was laughed at for years by the czar  
For Abdul the Bulbul left most of his tool  
In Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."

Dave steps further into the room, fists forming from frustrated fury. [Is He making this crazy Thing up as He goes along?]

"The fair Grecian maiden a sad vigil keeps  
With a husband whose tastes have turned queer  
She longs for the dong that once did belong  
To Abdul the Bulbul Emir."

Roger ripples final flourish as Nick begins to applaud. "Brah-VO, Rog! Haven't heard you do that one in YEARS."

Dave can admit to himself it sounded pretty cool, but wouldn't give Roger the satisfaction. "Now knock it off and drag your drunk arses to bed. Rude, Roger, to come home and wake everybody up with your shitty singing." [Insulting His manners or His voice usually makes Him frost over and stalk away.] "Where the hell have you two BEEN, anyway?"

"None of your business." Roger snaps.

Nick speaks simultaneously. "Party at John's."

This is not the first Dave's heard regarding goings-on at the Entwistle estate, a place to which he HAS been invited but in which has never yet set foot. "What's it like there?" he can't help but ask. "I heard it's weird...is he a weirdo?"

"Yeah." Nick's easygoing utterance again coincides with Roger's sharp statement.

"He's a charming and gracious host."

Dave's in danger of losing his temper. "Well, then, he must've kicked YOU out, and I'm about to do the same. You crash in here, loud as holy hell, smelling like a brewery-"

Nick interrupts with a giggle "Don't let's get into WHO smells like WHAT..."

"Oh, let's DO..." Roger arises from piano bench and strides to stand within Dave's reach, flaring nostrils and inhaling theatrically. "YOU smell like a Pina Colada, Dave. Like a fucking tropical paradise, which leads me to believe you were not sleeping at all. Isn't the middle of the night an odd time to be working on your tan?" He cracks knuckles and glares, but speaks calmly "Now, unless you are inclined to join us in singing bawdy songs, I strongly suggest YOU go to bed. I don't care whose. Play along, or..." He arches suggestive eyebrow "...bugger off."

[God DAMN. He DOES know...drunk as He is, who knows WHAT He might say?] Dave can't defy, but also can't retreat, and the words that erupt are perhaps more of a surprise to him than they are to Roger and Nick.

"As I was sitting 'round the fire  
Getting drunk on gin and water  
Suddenly a thought occurred to me  
Why not shag O'Reilly's daughter?"

Rick sits up in bed at the sound of Dave's sweet singing with an aggrieved huff. [He was supposed to shut them up, and now he's warbling "One-Ball Reilly"? There probably ARE slutty women out there he's trying to impress. "...don't finish without me." indeed! I'll do what I like..]

"I grabbed that she-bitch by the tits  
Threw her down and nearly stove her  
Rub it up, shove it up, balls and all  
She laughed like hell till the fun was over"

Dave watches Roger and Nick exchange amused glances as he continues, trying to remember the words, improvising the ones he forgets.

"O'Reilly bursting through the door  
Screaming screams of blood and slaughter  
Two horse pistols in his hands  
To shoot the man who's shagging his daughter"

Roger and Nick are now openly snickering in complicity as Dave carries on defiantly.

"I grabbed that bastard by the neck  
Stuck his head in a bucket of water  
Rammed those pistols up his arse  
A damned sight further than I shagged his daughter"

[They're laughing at me...well, fuck it, I THINK this is how it ends...]

"As I go walking down the street  
People cry from every quarter  
'There goes that God-damned son-of-a-bitch  
The one that shagged O'Reilly's daughter!' "

Nick blows a ripping raspberry while making a thumbs-down gesture. "We sang THAT one in nursery school, Dave."

"Weak sauce, Gilmour," Roger agrees "Gonna sing another jump-rope rhyme? Maybe favor us with the one about Miss Suzy and her steamboat? Even Rick probably knows dirtier songs than THAT."

Dave's had enough. He tried, and they made fun. Fuck this noise. "Even if he DOES, he wouldn't sing them." He turns to stomp away, and is confronted by Rick standing to block the hallway, arms folded and slippered foot tapping, wearing an exceptionally attractive set of silk pajamas under open matching robe. [Never seen that outfit before...what a flattering color and sheen...not quite salmon, not quite silver...some sort of marvelous mauve...mmm, how his flesh would feel under such slinky material...fuck, he heard that...]

[He thinks I WOULDN'T? Well, I can do better than "One-Ball Reilly".] Rick dares to place a gently shoving hand on Dave's naked chest. "Oh, is the party breaking up just when I decide to join it?" He says, loud enough for Roger and Nick to hear and notice his arrival as he pushes Dave back into the room ahead of him before bursting into song.

"A sailor told me before he died  
I don't know whether the bastard lied  
He had a wife with cunt so wide  
She never could be satisfied"

Rick notices Dave's worshipful, uncharacteristically flustered gaze, but is mostly watching Roger casting almost frantic glances until alighting upon notebook beside piano and snatching it up, reaching into coat pocket for pen and beginning to transcribe words Rick is singing.

"So he invented a big fucking wheel  
Attached it to a big prick of steel  
Two balls of brass were filled with cream  
And the whole fucking thing was run by steam"

[He looks so lovely...so confident...why can't he sing like THIS on stage?] Dave has backed up to lean against a wall, not trusting his ability to keep his hands off Rick if he were close enough to do so.

"Round and round went the big fucking wheel  
In and out went the prick of steel  
Until at last his wife she cried  
'Enough, enough, I'm satisfied!' "

Nick has shifted from guffaw to outright howl, and Dave now enthusiastically claps his hands while flashing sparkling eyes as Rick serenades them with final verse.

"But now we come to the bitter bit  
There was no way of stopping it  
The poor girl was ripped from twat to tit  
And the whole fucking issue went up in shit."

"Wow, Rick." Roger respectfully remarks, still scribbling "That's filthy. Is it 'before' or 'afore' in the first verse? Where did you learn those dirty words?"

Rick smiles and stammers, trying to simultaneously bow appreciation at Dave's adulation while answering Roger's twin questions. "Thank you, I'll be here all week...um, 'before' but both work...yeah...I had a job at the Glory Hole Hotel as a lad...lot of naughty ditties made the rounds."

"Tickling the ivories or mopping up?" Roger quips.

Rick plays along "Oh, YOU know how it is...little bit of both."

Roger cackles "Was Dave's mum working there?" He stows new lines and invitingly indicates piano bench, stepping out of the way for Rick to approach.

"She sure was pretty." Rick flutters eyelashes in mock memory. [He WANTS me to play HIS piano? He MUST be three sheets to the proverbial wind.] Settling into position, he asks "Do you remember the words to 'Frigging In The Rigging'?"

"I do!" Nick cheerily proclaims, and Rick begins to play, feeling warmly secure...celebrated, even...and among friends. [We were together before Dave came along...maybe it won't hurt him to be reminded of that.]


	19. Act I, Scene 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our angelic lovers discuss recent unholy proposition...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a direct sequel to Chapter 4 of "Uncomfortably Dumb", and also references Chapter 3 of "The Quiet One"

"Were you EVER going to tell me about Clare?"

Rick's wounded note is worrisome, but Dave answers lightly. "Sure, if you'd asked." [He can't be jealous, can he?] Stalling, he adds a question of his own. "When d'you suppose she snared Nick?"

Recalling gasps and giggles when he'd spied the two of them obscured (but obviously entwined) beneath a pile of coats on studio lounge's sofa the winter day Abbey Road's heating had malfunctioned, Rick raps rapid reply "I KNOW when Nick was...with her. I'm asking when YOU were."

Affecting hopefully seductive playfulness, Dave forms film from foam between encircled thumb and forefinger before blowing it gently into a bubble toward Rick across the Jacuzzi where both men have been attempting to soak out tension and toxins of Roger's obscene proposition. "Jeez, Richard, it was only once and I don't remember exactly when. What is it you REALLY want to know?"

"Was it before or after He...had her...in the recording booth?" [If he claims not to know THAT, it'll mean he doesn't remember OUR first time, either...or that he's lying. Not sure which would be worse.]

"After." Dave plainly admits, not daring to share the cheap thrill attained from 'stealing' Roger's girl, tacking on "It was HER idea."

Rick believes THAT. Intimate interlude had been Clare's suggestion with him, too. [Ohh, how I ran with it, though. Scaled her octaves for hours.]

"Clare's a lady who knows what she wants..." Dave declares, suppressing smirk "...and isn't shy about getting it."

Rick strives to recall the pitch and range elicited during his erotic etude with her, but each attempt arouses only offending echoes of keening cries counterpointed by crack of crop. [Damn Roger, and damn Clare, too. They deserve each other. To hell with both of them.] "She's no lady."

"Didn't stop YOU." Dave retorts, wondering what high horse Rick is riding.

"I didn't KNOW." Rick glowers "I thought she was...nice...and that YOU were, too."

[Okay, what the fuck is THIS? Guess I'd better ask.] "Richard, why are you angry with me?"

"Why?" Rick's voice spirals shrilly "WHY? Because you told HIM...prob'ly bragged together about whips and chains...but you never told ME. I told YOU, after all."

[You told EVERYBODY.] Dave bites back sharp snap, seeing that Rick's upset is at least understandable, if incorrect. Possessiveness, though, could have been a real problem. "I DIDN'T tell Him." Dave glides through steamy, swirling water to enfold his beloved in wet, warm embrace. "Maybe she did...or Alan, I did beg the key from him...or maybe He just lucky-guessed, like with Nick. I'd NEVER tell Him something personal." Dave passionately promises, touch and tone trying toward tender temperance. "There weren't any 'whips and chains', either."

Twin concerns assuaged, Rick can't help but ask "She didn't want anything...kinky?"

"No." Dave reassures, remembering "She made a pass, and I said okay. Nothing...weird...even came up."

[Something's come up NOW...] Softly stroking Dave's stiffening shaft, Rick delves his expression as he imploringly inquires "Would you have wanted to if it HAD?"

"I guess that would've depended on WHAT." Dave allows, smiling down through breaks in bubbles at the sight of fondly fondling fingers then back up into enticing eyes. "I've got pretty simple tastes, Richard. Just want to feel good with somebody who makes me happy...but I like to be flexible and generous to whoever plays with me."

[Suppose that's true, or he might have never played with ME at all.] "Thankfully not flexible enough to go along with Roger's horrid idea." 

"Of course not. He's a maniac." Dave agrees, but is curious to learn... "What did you think was the most awful thing about it?"

Rick shudders in his lover's embrace, hand falling away to trail into stream from water jet beside him as he recollects Roger's soul-searing stare. "The worst part was something that didn't even really happen. This may sound crazy, but...for a minute...it felt like I was reading His mind."

"Brr." Dave mock-shivers in sympathy "That WOULD have been horrifying. What did you see there?"

Glad Dave seems to be humoring him, Rick begins hesitantly "You know He knows about us, right?"

"Yeah." Dave can't deny "Not sure how, but..." he trails off as Rick carries on.

"Well, when you called Him a pervert, I swear I HEARD in my head what was in His, and..." timid tremble precedes anxious acknowledgement "...He wanted to call US perverts..." [and worse] "...to SAY everything He knows out loud right then."

Dave bestows a gentle kiss before a calm assurance. "I'm sure that was scary, but, even if He HAD, there was nobody to hear but Nick, and I don't think he cares."

"He doesn't. He didn't about Syd, either."

"You two actually talked about it?"

"I tried..." Rick confesses "...once, a long time ago, when things were really bad...but he didn't want to hear it." [Sent me off to tell John...who helped guide me to you.] "Nick's all right, but what if He tries to blackmail us, Dave? What could we DO?"

Dave hadn't considered that possibility, and the very idea strikes a chord of defiant fury. "I don't think we have anything He WANTS, Richard."

"Yes, we do." Rick reminds "He wants that disgusting concept album. What if He thinks He can MAKE us...?"

"He won't MAKE me do ANYTHING." Dave declares "I'd tell Him to go fuck HIMSELF." Realizing that he's just placed his own pride above Rick's privacy, he swiftly shifts subject, sounding surprisingly Devil's Advocate. "He does have a point, though...about Clare."

"What point?" Rick snaps "That she'd do it? Of course SHE would. That people would buy it? So what? We don't need THAT kind of money...or attention." He regards Dave with distress. "You aren't seriously considering it, are you?"

"Not HIS way..." Dave tentatively suggests "...but maybe without Him involved at all."

Rick snorts with mingled indignity and incredulity. "You think we could record...THAT...with HER...without Roger finding out? NOW who's crazy?"

"Not record...that'd be too much like work." Dave grins as if this is all a joke, attempting to gauge Rick's reception "But wouldn't it REALLY get His goat if Clare played with both of us..." he raises insinuating eyebrow along with ingratiating invitation "...together? Sure, He'd find out, but not 'til we'd had our fun."

Rick isn't quite certain how to answer, since he's unsure precisely what's being proposed. "You think...that...would be fun...for both of us?"

"Yeah." Dave states simply "Don't you?"

"NO." Rick emphatically denies "Clare's His now, and I wouldn't touch her EVER again."

"How about a different lady, then? Somebody He doesn't even know...or who hates Him."

Rick is confused. "How would THAT 'get His goat'?"

"It wouldn't..." Dave admits, pulling Rick closer to press the point "...but it would get me hot."

[Oh! Subverting Roger for its own sake is one kind of thrill, but you're after something else, Dirty Dave.] "Have you done it before...?" [Come on, I can say it.] "...a threesome?"

"I've had two women." is delivered matter-of-factly.

"How was it?" Rick has fantasized...

"Exhausting." Dave simultaneously smiles and sighs "They wore me out...and rolled me afterward."

Rick feels bad for laughing, but can't contain chagrined chortle. "How much did they take you for?"

"All I had on me." Dave finds it funny himself. "Who cares? They earned it, I guess. Slept happy, even if I DID wake up broke. Coulda been worse..." He chuckles "...at least they didn't GIVE me anything."

"Would you do it all over again?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it the OTHER way..." Dave shares, sweetly sliding slippery hands over Rick's slick, heated skin. "...since playing with you. I've imagined how well we could play together...how it would be to watch you with a woman...and have you watch me...to take turns making her scream BOTH our names."

Rick is intrigued at the concept and inflamed by the contact. [Exhibitionist AND voyeur? He's greedy, but not selfish...wants to share me...share WITH me. I can be 'flexible and generous', too. As kinks go, menage a trois is relatively mild, anyway.] "Who do you have in mind?"

"I'd trust YOUR choice, Richard. I know you could find us a...nice lady, if you were so inclined." Decision placed into Rick's hands figuratively, Dave's hardness throbs within them literally "I'm in no hurry for that...I'll be ready whenever you are...but I can't wait much longer right now."

"Do you want to get out?" Rick means of the tub, and moves to do so, but Dave fluidly shifts him onto his lap.

"I'd like to get in..." murmurs Dave, lustfully lidded gaze awaiting assent "...what do you say?"

"Yes!" Rick gasps, feeling his lover's length pressing firmly against him. [He's bigger than Syd...and it's been so long...but he won't hurt me...]

"Oh, Richard..." Dave groans, daring another wicked request "...would you ever let me record the way you say my name when I'm pleasing you?"

Rick doesn't know what Dave is asking. "What 'way' do you mean?"

[He almost always does it...can it be he isn't aware?] "Let me show you." Dave urges, wrapping fingers around Rick's rampant underwater reed to squeeze and stroke in the manner he has learned elicits ecstatic echo, his own erection slipping between buoyantly bobbing buttocks.

"Ohhhh..." wafts wantonly from Rick's throat. "Oh, Dave, I love you." Conscious cognition crumbles as his eyes roll back "...DAVEDavedave..."

"That's it, Richard, right there...just like that...say it again..." Dave's pulse races and his breath catches. [Too close...mmmm...won't happen this time...can't focus...when he comes, know I will.]

"DAVEDavedave..." Rick's splashing spasms send fine spray above the waterline as milky spurts erupt below it, and Dave cries out in rhapsody of reciprocal release.

"I love you, Richard."

Rick manages to fall forward rather than back, collapsing upon Dave's chest and pinning him against the tub's rim as they both slowly recover from breathless bathing bliss.

"I wanted to..." Dave sighs apologetically, although it had been too wonderful for him to feel any real regret "...that sound just drives me so wild. Next time, okay?"

"Of course..." Rick avows, stirring to offer first a kiss and then Dave's own words back to him "I'll be ready whenever you are." [Guess I'll HAVE to let him record me...us...sometime, since I still have no clue what 'sound' he means.]


	20. End Of Act I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big finish! The Grand Schism is at hand, and *warning* there will be blood...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we're caught up here with what Rockfic has. There will be an "Act II", but I'm not sure how soon. It won't be the same now that Roger's no longer Our Lovers' looming threat...

"Careful with that axe, Eugene." Roger snaps "If aggressive brandishing does not cease IMMEDIATELY, I shall be forced to take your toy away from you."

"You and what ARMY?" Dave retorts, contrarily jabbing guitar's headstock nearer to contact with each thrust, taunting but not touching.

"I don't NEED a pack of uniforms behind me to make my point, and I've doubted for some time whether I have any further use for a band of bleating brats to do it, either. You clueless pups don't even UNDERSTAND the fucking songs you're playing. Pearls before swine, it is, and if I'm to manage all the work I shouldn't have to argue."

"So, you REALLY think we should just all shut up and do your bidding?" Looking to Rick and Nick for backup, Dave sees he isn't going to get any. [Why am I the only one who ever stands up to Him?]

"Well..." Roger smirks "...either that or, y'know, WRITE. Since neither's bloody likely, I believe I've suffered enough posturing pretense and crises of confidence."

"Get out, then." growls Dave, knuckles whitening from tight grip on neck of guitar, wondering how it'd feel throttling Roger's. "Nobody fucking likes you, anyway, and nobody would buy your bitter, brutal, lunatic records if they didn't say 'Pink Floyd'. We don't need you, and we'd be a lot happier without you."

Roger stands His ground, although Dave's gestures with Stratocaster encroach upon His reach."I will not warn you again." He coolly declares "Either put that down or fucking PLAY it. You'd be better off waving your ACTUAL dick...at least THAT I wouldn't touch." Condescending gaze alights upon Rick, who clearly discerns unspoken insinuation.

"Scared?" Dave jeers, failing to elicit desired flinch from deliberately threatening sweep of instrument's solid body.

"Repulsed." is Roger's rejoinder as both hands suddenly seize fretboard in fiercely firm grasp.

Dave refuses to relinquish, planting feet and squaring shoulders into tug-of-war stance. Just as quickly as it had battened, Roger's hold abruptly releases, catching Dave entirely unguarded from the vicious recoil of his own leverage reversed upon him. Stratocaster's headstock smashes brutally against his mouth and he drops the guitar to the floor with a keening snarl of feedback as both hands fly to inspect integrity of teeth and damage to lips.

"Roger, you fucking psychopath!" Rick screams, arising from behind piano in horror to behold bright blood welling between Dave's fingers. "I'm calling the police."

"Go ahead." Roger icily informs "With the police come the press...RICHARD...and I'll cheerfully go to jail...where I will TALK."

"Hey, now." Nick pipes up "I saw the whole thing, and He didn't hit him, Rick. He just let go. Dave decked HIMSELF."

Rick has hurried to Dave's side, and now briefly shifts worried regard to glare across the room at Nick's defense before Dave removes one gore-spattered hand from the ruin of lacerated lips to reassuringly pat Rick's arm, blood staining his sleeve.

"No police..." Dave decrees "...and no press." He tries to calm Rick, who he can tell is terrified at the sight of his injury. "I'm okay, Richard. Nick's right, it was an accident." He knows it wasn't [Roger meant that to happen, but it was my own stupid fault for letting it.] but wouldn't wish to try explaining before judge or journalist. Tongue cautiously explores his lower teeth, discerning none cracked or loosened, before he addresses Roger. "The next bloodshed won't be. If you know what's good for you, you'll get out RIGHT NOW."

Roger offers a mocking half-bow, eyes flicking between Dave's extant expression and the blood dripping from his chin. "For once, we are in absolute agreement." He turns and stalks stridently down corridor of bedroom doors, muttering "What's good for ME is LONG overdue.", slamming open the door of His chamber then rattling about inside.

Nick sidles past Dave and Rick with an uneasy askance glance, calling down the hallway ahead of him as he follows Roger. "You're not getting a gun, are you?"

Roger does not answer, but the sounds of rustling rummage continue.

"Well..." Dave says sincerely as he bends to unplug his guitar and switch off the amp "...if He shoots Nick that'll give us time to jump Him..." Considering Rick's frozen fear, he amends "...or Run Like Hell."

Rick wants to do just that. "It's YOU He'll shoot." he hisses anxiously.

"Not a chance." Dave promises "He'll storm out, stay gone a few days, then come home acting like nothing happened."

Nick emerges back into sight, Roger's voice carrying clearly behind him.

"You'll have NO future opportunities to be completely WRONG about me in my presence." Wearing a heavy leather coat for which the weather is too warm and clutching a large black valise, Roger strides to the piano bench. He flips open the seat's hinged lid, reaching in to withdraw a single tattered notebook which He slips into His satchel before straightening up to scornfully scathe "I HAVE no 'home' with you, and was a fool to ever think I did." Surveying the room as if for the last time, He proclaims "I won't be back. Not for ANYTHING. Feel free to set afire or auction off whatever tainted trash remains here...that includes yourselves."

"Roger, wait!" Nick beseeches "We can talk about this."

"No..." Roger sighs heavily "...we can't. If we COULD have, we WOULD have. Now it's too late."

"Let Him go, Nick." Dave laughs dismissively "We don't need Him."

"Look at you, giving orders already." Roger sneers over one shoulder as He walks away to open the door. 

"I'm coming with you." blurts Nick, raking Rick and Dave with uncharacteristically bitter bite. "I WILL be back, but I don't know if it'll be for anything more than my stuff. DON'T burn or sell any of MY gear."

Dave doesn't dignify either of their Famous Last Words and Rick remains too shell-shocked to speak as half the band departs. Neither consciously intending, both reach for the other's hand, fingers entwining seemingly of their own accord while sounds of engines engage then subsequently ebb.

"Is it really over?" Rick whispers "Are we finished forever?"

Incredibly, Dave finds himself grinning as he takes Rick into confident embrace. "Only the bad parts are over, Richard. WE won't ever be finished...as long as you love me." He moves in for a kiss, but Rick stiffens in his arms and turn his face away. His heart wrenches with anguish as he momentarily imagines his beloved Richard is rejecting him, but then remembers he's still bleeding. "I'm sorry, I must look hideous. Of course you don't want to kiss me. How ugly is it?"

"Oh, Dave, you could never look ugly." Rick forces himself to study the gruesome spectacle. "I can't tell how...bad...it is. There's too much blood. I do want to kiss you, but that could make it worse. You might need to go to the Emergency Room."

"I'd rather go to the bedroom." Dave insists, drawing Rick tighter against him to press split lips upon moistly parted ones, tongue slipping between in eager, thrusting probe.

Rick has never tasted another's blood, and although the thought remains mildly icky, the flavor isn't unpleasant. [Not too different from his sweat or his...ohhh, stop, he's injured...we CAN'T...] Reluctantly pulling back, he timidly inquires "That didn't hurt you, did it?"

"There is no pain, Richard." Dave sweetly swears "Maybe there will be in the morning, but right now all I feel is happy." [And horny. Mmmm, he's licking my blood from his lips...why does THAT get me hot?] "He's gone and we're still together. I want to celebrate our freedom...don't you?"

"How?" [Couldn't refuse him anything...]

Dave softly suggests "Something special." Disentangling from Rick's embrace, he moves to lead him down the hall. "We won't be interrupted this time, and we never have to worry about Him again. Feels like I've been waiting forever..." He greedily takes another, more heated kiss, reaching behind Rick's back to open his bedroom door. "Do you want me?"

"Always." Rick gasps as Dave's nimble fingers begin unbuttoning his trousers, slipping inside to fondle firm flesh. "I love you."

"Wish you'd told me sooner." Dave murmurs, kissing downward along lines of Rick's neck, stopping when he sees he's left scarlet streaks upon the flesh of his throat and spots soaking darkly into the fabric of his collar. "Take it off." he gently urges "Take everything off you don't want ruined, because I'm going to kiss you everywhere."

[His poor mouth...how can he want to?...But he does, and so do I.] "Won't that hurt?" Rick frets, but nonetheless strips off his shirt before sitting down onto the bed and bending to unlace his boots. 

Dave, who is not wearing shoes, has an easier time of disrobing. "Richard, please..." he implores, sliding naked atop the covers and turning up his own loving gaze into Rick's look of ardent adoration desirously devouring bare body "...stop worrying just for a little while, okay? I promise it doesn't hurt, and if it's too awful to look at I don't mind if you close your eyes, but I'll cry if you make me wait another day...another hour..." He pulls Rick to lie beside him, urgently declaring "I need you."

Shoving opened pants down to his knees then kicking them the rest of the way off, Rick amorously avows "You have me."

[Not yet, I haven't, but I will. Nothing...Nobody...can stop us now.] Dave inches by intimate increments, trailing burning, bleeding lips downward to enfold eager erection.

[He wants to do THAT, it MUST not hurt...ohhh...said not to worry...ohhh.] "Ohhh, Dave." Rick moans "How did I ever get so lucky?"

[I'm gonna get him so excited he can't say stop, then we'll BOTH get lucky.]

"DAVEDavedave...."

[Whoa, there's my favorite sound...sooner than usual...better back off.] Dave ceases oral overtures and slowly sits up as Rick exhales a whimpering sigh of frustration. Dave waits for him to open his eyes, then quietly inquires "Are you ready?"

"Yes." is uttered unconditionally. Uncertain as to exactly what he's agreeing, Rick can conceive of no desire Dave could express that he would wish to deny.

"Okay." Dave stretches back out beside his lover and invites "Come here and show me." Although he's sure his smile isn't presently pretty, he hopes it can still entice. "I think I've left you slick enough."

[Oh! He wants ME to...] "Dave...you've left me CLOSE enough, it might be...I might not...last." Rick stammers, stalling and blushing.

"That doesn't matter, Richard." [Planned it that way. Busted mouth doesn't hurt...yet...but haven't a clue whether THIS will. Don't really want the first experience too extended...might not like it.] "I just want to feel you...to have you...if you're ready."

"Are YOU ready?" Rick hedges, finally daring to ask "Have you...ever?"

"I haven't." Dave assures "You'll be the first, but I've been ready for you a long time."

Rick wonders aloud "How long?"

Dave reminds him "That first night...when I said 'anything'...I meant it. Wanted you, even then, and would have any time since." He rolls over to brazenly grind his bottom against Rick's slippery stiffness. "Everything with you has been beautiful, so it was all right to wait, but I can't anymore. Please, Richard..."

"Hold still." Rick begs, finding fond friction too deliciously distracting. He grips Dave's hips to halt lascivious swivel, shifting one hand to guide himself, fingers delicately slipping between his own flesh and fondest friend's until he's assured of assiduous alignment. "Now, relax..." Unable to suppress torrid tremble, Rick considers the possibility he needs this advice more than Dave does as he tentatively presses toward penetration, resisting overwhelming urge to thrust. "Ohhh..." 

"Mmm..." Dave harmonizes. [Wow, I can actually feel vibration of vocalization...and his pulse. This is definitely going to take some getting used to, but it's...he's...worth it.] "I love you." he groans as Rick slowly slides deeper.

"Love you." Rick echoes ecstatically, shallow strokes serving sensual sensation and inundating inhibition "LoveyouloveyouLOVEyou...ohhh, Dave, YES...yesyesyes....DAVEDavedave."

"Oh!" Final quivering deep drive strikes a powerful chord, and Dave suddenly understands this has potential to feel incredible, indeed...with patient practice.

"Steady..." Rick whispers, remembering "...it can hurt pulling out, too." No sooner has he carefully withdrawn than Dave turns to throw gladdened, grateful arms around him.

"It didn't hurt at all, Richard. You were perfect. I knew you would be." Dave passionately flatters, rubbing himself against Rick's slick stomach, slipping stiffly between thighs. "I might not be so good, but will you let me try?"

"Of course." Rick pulls Dave atop, parting his legs and reaching to take hardness in hand. "Here, I can help...wait...there, yes, Dave, right there...Ohhh." [Ow...could've used some of that luscious oil, but didn't want to break the spell to find it. He's been bleeding this whole time and hasn't complained...I can take it...I WANT to take it...I AM taking him...finally.]

[Had women this way, but Rick is different...maybe it's just that he made me wait so long...maybe it's that I love him more.] "Richard, you're...mmm...you're so...ahh, so amazing." He halts the motion of his hips, growling "Gotta stop if I wanna keep it up."

"No, don't." Rick pumps upward beneath him, trying not to wince or hiss. "Don't hold back. Let me have it all." 

Dave couldn't resist if he wanted to, besotted with urging words and enveloping ecstasy. "As you wish, Richard..." [Does he mean 'all' length or 'all' volume...mmm, he's about to get both.] Dave cries out wordlessly as he spams in Rick's embrace while erupting into his body. Recalling advice, he gingerly and gently withdraws before collapsing onto sweaty sheets beside beautiful beloved. 

"This might be the best day of my life." Dave proudly proclaims "I banished the monster then bedded the king."


End file.
